I Can't Believe It's Been A Year... Heart Update

I can hardly believe it was a year ago today that our littlest guy came out of the operating room looking like this.... For those new to our blog, this was Reid's second open heart surgery. The first was to fix an ASD, a VSD, and his mitral valve when he was 7 months old. The second surgery, just before his 2nd birthday, was to further repair the mitral valve which had some moderate to severe leakage. The surgery seemed a success at first but then things went a little south and it was thought he would need to go back into the operating room for surgery # three to replace the valve altogether with a metal one before he would be released...which quite possibly could have caused more complications and more surgeries down the road. However, long story short (or read here for posts from that time) over a course of several hand wringing days his swelling and excess fluid had dissipated and they decided to send us home to see if we could get a few more years out of his own valve before needing to completely replace it. But............ drumroll please...........I have not updated on his heart (shame on me) until now and as of last month he is now completely heart medicine FREE......AND his last echo showed a near perfect heart. The cardiologist said that if he keeps on like this there will not be a need for another surgery. Makes this mom's own heart very, very happy!!

Reid's surgery happened to be scheduled on Toby's 40th birthday.....which means TODAY is his birthday.....Happy Birthday Toby! We love you!

Below are pictures of what his little "zipper" looks like today, Reid in his "I did it" shirt because it just seems appropriate, and then him just being his little hambone self!

Bowed Arms Are A Result of Radial Head Dysplasia

Thank you everyone for your comments and emails regarding my last post about Reid's bowed arms. I took Reid to the orthopedist to have the Dr. look at his arms....and what we found was that it appears to be skeletal and not just muscular as we had thought. It turns out his little bones did not develop correctly in utero in that his radius is out of place...The doctor said it is called Radial Head Dysplasia resulting in the inability to supinate (inability to turn palms straight up). I attached two x-rays showing his left arm and one with the Dr.'s markings as to where the radius really should be located (both of his arms have "dysplasia"). The Dr. felt that Reid will most likely accommodate his mechanical loss of supination with shoulder and hand motion but wants us to also check in with another specialist in his field who he believes to have more experience with this type of presentation. As it looks now we basically have two options...do nothing and watch and see how he does or we could do surgery when he got a little older called a forearm derotational oseotomy. As the last few days have gone by and we've continued our research more questions have come up for us and so we have decided to go for the second opinion to further clarify if there is anything we need to be doing occupationally to help him since there are sensitive ligaments and soft tissue that may still need stretching. We have also found that if we do go down the surgical road it is better to do it at a younger age than older...and also found that the "bowing" tends to become more noticeable around 2 years of age which explains why it came on our radar again. But...then on the other hand we have also found people who have lived with this their whole life and commented that it did not affect them in any way, except one said he had a hard time bowling. Aghhh....that was nice to hear. If not being able to bowl is the worst of it...then we are in good shape. :) So, for now we watch our cute little bowed armed Reid and help him to accommodate the best he can while we wait to get into the other specialist.