Yesterday brought an exciting milestone: Ripley started crawling! He had been crying and more needy the past few days so I like to attribute it to him trying to work on this new skill.
Today, we took him to a cardiology follow-up visit. His last visit was six months ago. Thankfully, things are looking about the same as they did last time. The obstruction under his pulmonary valve (thickened muscle that was essentially shaved off during his open heart surgery) is still looking good. His pulmonary valve has very minor leakage, which is to be expected. The pulmonary arteries are growing fine. His doctor said that Ripley will continue to be monitored, but hopefully, things will develop normally and that one open heart surgery will be the only one he ever needs.
The things he said could potentially be issues in the future as a Tetralogy of Fallot survivor are: arrhythmia due to the incision made in his right ventricle during open heart surgery, an atrial flutter, which seems similar to atrial fibrillation.
At this point, Ripley is cleared to be treated like a normal baby and his next cardiology visit will be in six months. He certainly does not like laying still for the echocardiogram and not being allowed to grab at the transducer and cord used to observe his heart so it's nice we don't have to go through this too often. "Watching" a movie on TV did help a little to keep his gaze transfixed for a few minutes while the scan was being conducted.
The prospect of cardiology follow-ups is always terrifying for me because I don't know what to expect. I am so thankful that so far, things have been looking positive. I pray that they remain this way for my sweet heart warrior.
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