13 years old and a Follow-up!

Well, Dylan is officially a teenager now and growing! He had an appointment with his cardiologist this morning and grew 1.5 inches since his last visit with her six months ago. 

Today was pretty routine and quick. He did an EKG, which measures everything about the heartbeat. Comparing it to the one we got six months ago, there is very little change, which is good. His right pumping chamber is filling slightly slower now compared to six months ago. When that number gets significantly bigger, that will be bad news. So right now he is stable. That means he can keep doing everything he’s doing for now. Whew!

Now that his body is growing more rapidly, his doctor is expecting for things to change any time. If we’re lucky we’ll get 1-2 more years of him being stable. 

Here’s a few of the questions that are always asked:

*do you ever feel weird heartbeats, racing?

*do you ever experience chest pain?

*do you ever have shortness of breath?

*do you feel like it’s hard to keep up with other kids?

* do you get tired easily?

* do you feel chest tightening?

*have you ever passed out or felt lightheaded?

These are the things we are keeping an eye on.

I remember when he was a baby and we were dealing with major heart problems, open heart surgery, and looking at his future, this doctor said that it would be really amazing if we could get him to his 13th birthday before a valve replacement was needed. 

Well, he’s made it to that milestone and I’m so grateful. He’s had many years of normal growth, regular physical activity, and no restrictions or medications. How amazing is that? We’ll take all the normalcy we can get! 

We'll go back in six months for another appointment. And Dylan will be due for another MRI this summer. We will get to see what the backflow rate is now compared to the MRI he got three years ago. That one showed that he was losing 50% of his blood to a leak in his pulmonary valve. And yet, he's going strong. He has one amazing heart!