Freddie and Family: Sunday 19th February 2012

Freddie had his appointment at Glenfield hospital on Thursday. He was a really good boy for his scan despite being full of cold bless him. He smiled his way through his ECHO attempting to eat the cables attached to the scanning device!

He weighed in at fifteen pounds so is still putting weight on brilliantly.

The doctor could feel Freddie's leg pulses which was a positive. He told us the scan showed that Freddie's heart is functioning well. The scan did show that Freddie still has another narrowing but his heart is coping well with it. We were told when he was discharged from Glenfield that there was another narrowing that they would continue to monitor.

The doctor told us there are three things that could happen: 1. Nothing. The coarctation grows out as Freddie continues to grow. 2. That in the future he needs a balloon dilation procedure which would widen the artery, this is a less evasive procedure that surgery. 3. That he has to have another operation.
I'm sure it is obvious which option we would prefer. .

It was great to hear that Freddie is doing well and realistically his heart is functioning better than at his last scan but it was disappointing to hear that he still has a problem. I think in the three months that passed between Glenfield visits we naively started hoping that we would turn up to the appointment and they would just say that there was absolutely nothing wrong with him. Fortunately we seemed to find it easy to forget all the medical stuff after his last scan in November and just enjoy him because he is so obviously doing well. Unfortunately this meant that the appointment on Thursday was a bit of a slap in the face reality check.
A few days on and things are back to normal, enjoying the boys, worrying about normal things like coughs and colds and night time feeds.