Big Little Goods at Dixmyth and Clifton

Monday kicked off with my own Echo Cardiagram which was uneventful save the strange experience of seeing my own heart beat and flap and pump on a TV screen in front of me.  I have not seen the report but feel certain my pump house is in order.  The Echo was ordered simply as a precaution because my Dad and Bryce both have congenital heart defects, both leaking valves, albeit different valves with very different leak rates.  Also, my blood pressure has been headed back down toward earth without medication and the two measurements taken pre and post Echo put it significantly lower than any time in the past three weeks. 

Next up was our last fetal echo pre-birth.  All in all, it was pretty exciting.  River's almost right at 4 lbs.  while Bryce's weight came in at 4lb. 4oz.  Wow, honestly, we never anticipate giving birth to two boys so well developed.  There was no change in the sickness of his heart though it had enlarged a bit but not enough to create an emergency.  Blood movement as well as valve functionality remained the same throughout.  Still a very bad leak in the tricuspid, but still no leak in the pulmonary valve which means there is forward thrust out of the heart toward the lungs.  This is obviously of utmost importance to carry the child through delivery and give him a shot right out of the womb as he transitions off of Nicole's life support system and has to oxygenate his blood on his own (though there may be mechanical assistance for a while).  The fact that his pulmonary valve has not failed to prevent backflow inspite of the regurgitation in the preceding valve has been remarkable and has been one of the most important attractions to optimism. 

To cap it all off, we got another bit of good news today when Dr. Elluru scoped Nicole to check out her tracheal stenosis.  While there has been some tightening, it seems that a primary cause of her difficulty in breathing comes from the cohabitation of two little men inside of her preventing her from being able to fully contract her diaphragm.  This also means that the pace of the inflammation which closes her airway has slowed somewhat and may become manageable post delivery with annual dilations rather than a tracheal resection.  This also means that they feel comfortable with her going into the O.R. for delivery and feel free to intubate her trachea should they have to resort to general anesthesia during extraction. 

To top off a string of encouragements, Nicole was afforded some exciting addendums to her medical field trips. After the Fetal Echo on Monday we had lunch with an elder from the local PCA church I have connected with.  Ernie is and Indian from Boston who is in the last months of his 8 year residency in research neurology and psychiatry.  He is in fact the only specialist research doctor in Cincinnati to double these two disciplines and bridge these different departments in pediatric practice.  What's remarkable is how focused he has remained and how much he and his family have devoted to his passion to advance understanding and treatment in his fields.  In the past eight years he has not been afforded a single full weeks vacation though he and his English wife gave birth to two children while he was in med-school.  The support I have received and the warm welcome this past Sunday at Faith Pres. has been a big help to us here, as have been the friends I have made at the Ronald McDonald House.  We have not only been afforded world class care here by the cardiologists, MFMs, Fetal Care Team, and our ENT Elluru, but I have found supportive community.  As an aside, I had an interesting conversation with a Croatian pediatric surgeon who had come here for two months to observe treatment and surgical procedures in the colol/rectal department at Cincinnati Children's which he claimed is the leading center in the world for this field.  As a matter of fact, Cincinnati ranks number ONE in 8 different medical disciplines in the U.S. and number two or three overall depending upon how you slice it.  Boston and Philly tie in top rank which technically puts Cincy in the number two slot, but makes it the third highest ranked institution.  This is one reason why the RMH is the fourth largest in the world and is set to add on another entire wing to house bone-marrow transplant patients who have auto-immune disorders.  Finally, Nicole was able to set foot in my home-away-from-home (RMH) today in route back to Good Sam and was amazed at what she saw. 

I have had to make a conscious decision to see these trials as a time to grow and to concentrate on all the material presented as fertilizer.  There have been times when I did and wanted to simply live in survival.  To lock down and commit to doing only what needs be done to get by.  I have found myself in that mindset more than once.  The problem is, in a reactive posture, succumbing as a sort of victim's predicament, I become blind to all the wonderful gifts I am, we are being offered.  Not only gifts of new people and new experience, but the gifts of growth and lots of it.  This has been an incredible voyage to bond us together even more firmly in our marriage.  Spiritually we tend to mature most when we have little alternative to let go and trust in God and in so doing see great things come to past.  In life, though we may always know in principal that letting go and letting God provides the best blueprint for full living, we slip in and out of the illusion of control and must discipline both our will and our minds to keep proper perspective and cling to humility with confidence in our weakness.  Yet there is opportunity to gain in mental focus as well.  To concentrate on making the most off, of opportunism, of being open to gifts, goodness, and new relationships.  There is the chance to turn our minds to what we are leaning, how we are growing, and to maintain gratitude for both growth and grace.  This is one reason why I have committed myself to learning the streets up here.  It is not my goal to come here and go from here with only our boys.  It is my goal to come here and leave from here with everything this trial, this place, this experience has to offer us.  And don't get me wrong, I am no Carpe Dium icon.  Far from it.  But I am grateful not only for how God has held our little boys so lovingly in His hands but how we have seen and felt that same attentive care. 

Less than one week to D-day!  Then a new chapter begins!