surprise! we had an echo today!

i was having a leisurely lunch today with jenny when dr. king's office called. i decided he was important enough to answer for so i did.... here's how the convo started, "this is jennifer from dr. king's office. olivia's aunt jenny has been talking to brenda in our office about olivia's condition and we have an opening at 2:15 today if y'all can come."

um...yeah! she went on to say that dr. king was actually in the office and they'd feel better doing our echo with him there in case there were any problems.

and it turns out there are some SMALL problems so i'm SOOO glad jenny pulled those strings!

first, dr. king and his staff are AMAZING. he's a strong christian and was sure to tell us that God would bring us through this. i may have shed a tear at that point.

the short of it is olivia has the worst kind of dextrocardia. her heart is on the wrong side but her other organs (liver, etc) are in their correct place. apparently if your heart's on the wrong side you want everything on the wrong side. this gives her a 95% chance of heart disease. based on todays echo she has some leaky valves (one is mild to moderate which i assume is worse than the ones he didn't mention) and a hole (which very well may be the hole that everyone has in utero but is usually closed by birth but is very common that it doesn't). with no other testing he placed her in the 5% chance that there is no heart disease!! PRAISE!

we go on april 14 for an ultrasound of her belly at st. francis (we're looking for a spleen and if she has a spleen that it be in full working order). then our june 29th appt with dr. king got moved up to april 27. i'm not happy that this is "bad" enough to warrent such a jump in appt times but considering how this appt could have turned out i'm thrilled.

we will have to meet with a dr. elon (i could have very well butchered that) who is a pediatric pulmonologist. he's out of new orleans but comes as far north as alexandria so we'll meet him there. (dr. king is currently in works with getting him to come to monroe so a day may come that we'll be able to see him in monroe but i'll go wherever they tell me to go...) her breathing issues could very well be related to this which is why we'll be seeing him. that appointment has not been set yet; i think dr. king's office will set it and let us know when.

at our april 27th appt we'll do another much more detailed echo (possibly with o sedated, i didn't catch all the details) and an MRA (i don't have a clue what that is) and review in detail exactly what all she has and our treatment plan.

with all of this said she is very healthy. she's nice and pink and appears to have no problems with heart function/breathing. she can run, play, dance, play sports and be spanked. yes, they assured me it was ok to spank her. we will not treat her any differently than we have been (although she may get a little spoiled until all these dr appointments are over!)

i'm SO happy they got us in today. dr. king wasn't going to be there friday so we would have had to wait all weekend for results (and i'm going to be out of town monday and tuesday) and i just would have been on pins and needles. he came in the middle of our echo and was with us the rest of the time and talked to us about everything. his NP (the one that jenny got to pull the favor) was also with us. she's been with dr. king for 30 years.

as of right now he doesn't see any need for any surgeries but again, all tests aren't done. overall i'd say it was a pretty good appt. of course we were hoping for GREAT news but i'll definitely settle for GOOD news.