Cardiology check up, 20 months old, and Books for Charley

 Yesterday we went to Duke for Claire's cardiology check up.  We visited the NICU while we were there and got to see Nurse Jodi!  Claire was super excited to see her and we were too.  She always took such good care of Claire.  She was always so gentle and quiet around her - just what a preemie needs. 

We also visited the ladies at the front desk!  This is where we would have to go each day to ask if we could go back and see our baby - Baby Girl Scott as she was known to everyone there. 

As we were headed to CHC, we ran into Dr. Ferranti.  He was Claire's first neonatologist when she was born.  He then rotated back around to her at Christmas time and was the doctor who finally agreed to do the ultrasound of her liver that I begged for.  And then he's the one who validated that doctors should listen to parents....  :)  And yes, he really is that tall. 

We met up with Nurse Marie also and she was finally able to give Claire her Christmas present!! 

Which we ran home and played with outside and she loves it! 

And while we were at Duke we dropped off all 122 books we collected for "Books for Charley"!!!!!!!  Claire helped me put stickers in them and thought they were for her....

This is us dropping the books off with the Duke child life specialist.  She said they would go to the little "library" up in the PCICU (Peds Cardiac ICU) for patients and they would be super excited!!!!!!  Thanks to everyone who donated books or money for this.  It is awesome!!!!

Claire weighed 27.6 lbs and measured 31.9" on her 20 month birthday.  They tried to get the elusive blood pressure but it didn't work again.  She did great on the trip up and back and did great there too. 

The cardiologist said her EKG looked good (they didn't do an echo yesterday b/c they would have had to sedate her and he didn't see the need to do one).  He got a good listen to Claire's heart this time because she was asleep in my arms when he came in.  He said that her heart sounded about the same as last time so that was good.  He also said that she still had the "mild pulmonary stenosis" and the "moderate pulmonary valve regurgitation".  Basically she still has narrowing in her pulmonary artery and there is still moderate leakage in her pulmonary valve (this is the area that may have to be replaced eventually).  But he mentioned that this is the best case scenario for good long term heart health for Claire.  That pretty much with her heart condition/CHD, this is how he would want her heart to be.  So that was good news!  AND we got to move to the once a year appointment schedule instead of the every 6 months schedule!  They will do an echo next June when we visit.  He did say we could come back earlier though if we had concerns that something was going on with Claire's heart. 

So thank you for the prayers for a good visit because they worked!!!!

Love,

The Scott Family