Joshua had his cardiologist appointment today & we got good & bad news.  I think.  To back up a bit, we changed doctors after a not-so-good experience with his previous cardiologist (who is retiring anyhow so the need for a new cardiologist was inevitable).  Josh will now get his cardiology care with Dr. Becker at the Navy hospital where his regular pediatrician is & not have to go to Walter Reed & deal with their horrible parking situation (yeah!).  The appointment this morning did not go well.  At all.  First of all, Joshua screamed when I tried to put his diaper back on after getting weighed & stood up on the scale to try to get away (he’s now 23lb 9oz, by the way).  Then the corpsman tried to take his blood pressure & Joshua screamed the entire time so it couldn’t take it—three times.  We did our best to try to amuse/distract him but to no avail.  Then she tried to get an EKG, which went great 6 months ago.  But not this time—Josh kept squirming & crying, so the leads kept pulling off.  There were 12 of them, so it’s always been hard to keep them all on for long enough to get a good read but this time it just didn’t work.  She tried the BP again & it still didn’t work.  Boy, he was mad!

When the doctor came in, Joshua was finally in a good mood & even let him listen to his heart quite a bit.  Then we went next door for the echo & that didn’t go well either.  Joshua let him get enough of a look that he didn’t think he needed to see anymore or risk sedating him for a more thorough evaluation, but he didn’t get to see everything he was intending to.  So that’s why I’m not sure if the news we got was fully good & bad.  We’ll have to wait another 6 months for Joshua’s next appointment & hope it goes better so they can get all of their tests done in full.  So, here’s what he said:  He could not hear or see Joshua’s VSD (the hole at the bottom of his heart that wasn’t discovered until after the surgery).  That either means it’s starting to close so it was small enough that Dr. Becker couldn’t see it, or he couldn’t get a good enough look to find it.  That was the (hopefully) good news.  The bad news was the doctor found ‘mild’ pulmonary stenosis (sort of a blockage of bloodflow to the lungs), & he upgraded Joshua’s aortic insufficiency (a leaky valve) from ‘trivial’ to ‘mild.’  Dr. Becker explained that ‘trivial’ & ‘mild’ are obviously subjective terms as opposed to quantifiable but they’re pretty standardized in the world of cardiology with ‘trivial’ being barely noticible & ‘mild’ the next grade up.  It’s hard to tell if these new findings are actually a sign of things going wrong or just a different perspective since we switched doctors.  He’s going to review Joshua’s previous echo to see if he can detect any change or not.  So that’s the (possibly) bad news.

So, what does this all mean?  Really, nothing.  For now.  Dr. Becker said that Joshua still has no specific activity restrictions (other than us needing to continue being germ-conscious) & that he doesn’t anticipate any for the next 3-5 years at least.  He also said that Josh no longer will have to take prophylactic antibiotics before dental appointments unless his condition worsens, not that he should need to anyhow since he shouldn’t need any dental cleanings for awhile.  But Joshua also won’t need to take antibiotics for a mouth injury either, so that puts my mind at ease a great deal after the fiasco this summer.  The doctor even gave me the A-OK to have small amounts of caffeine which I haven’t had in what seems like forever (it’s been almost 2 years since I’ve been able to have my favorite chai tea latte at Starbucks, so I’m totally excited!), & said that it should be alright for Joshua to have some as well.  I’m curious as to what Josh will think of chocolate—I bet he’ll make a funny face but I’m sure he’ll like it since his genes come from Erick & me!

As for the non-cardiac stuff, Joshua & I have had colds lately which is no fun.  For him, it’s mainly a runny nose & it only bothers him when I try to wipe it off.  Otherwise, he’s perfectly fine & happy as can be.  Josh tried coloring for the first time the other day.  He didn’t enjoy it that much because Erick & I wouldn’t let him eat the crayons.  But he did some cute little scribbles that will look nice in his baby book (which I still have to get around to working on…).  We went to a children’s library yesterday & it didn’t go as well as the music time we went to at another library last week.  The librarian who was leading the group said that the kids could go wherever they wanted as long as they didn’t go up to her felt board.  Guess where Joshua wanted to go?  Yep, 3 times I needed to get up in front of everyone to grab him in the nick of time.  And once he almost lifted her dress up.  We might’ve been banned from storytime for life if I wasn’t fast enough!  At least he was having a good time, other than when I stopped his mischief.  We’ll stick to storytime at home for awhile.  Joshua had his first dentist appointment earlier this week & the dentist said things are going well & to just continue brushing his teeth like we’re doing.  He didn’t enjoy that appointment all that much either but at least it was nice & quick since she only needed to look at 6 teeth.  She didn’t think he’d be getting any new teeth anytime soon, but he’s still drooling a lot so we’ll see.

We’re getting ready for a visit from my friend Kerrie from San Diego.  Hopefully we’ll finally make it to the National Zoo!  It’s only fitting that we go with Kerrie since she took us to the San Diego Zoo.  Erick leaves for his family medicine rotation in Jacksonville, Florida in 2 1/2 weeks, so we’re sad about that (well, I am—Joshua will be very surprised & sad when Daddy’s suddenly not around, though).  That will be a very long month without him, but my dad just planned a visit so that’ll be nice.  Hopefully the weather will still hold up.  And then Vanessa is hoping to come for a visit in November so she can do the Heart Walk with us while Erick’s off on his next rotation in San Antonio.  What a busy fall!