We met with Lexi's newest specialist on the list, the Cardiologist yesterday. We discussed her
ASD (hole in her heart) and talked about possible action plans. For now, we are just going to continue watching the area to see if it still closes on its own, as 70-80% still will up until the age of 3. At that point, the odds get much less favorable, so if it hasn't closed by then, we will look into doing surgery.
At this point, we won't know how extensive the surgery will be until we see the progress over the next few years. The Cardiologist stressed that we shouldn't see any symptoms or effects of this hole right now. Basically, oxygen rich blood is flowing from the left side of Lexi's heart back into the right atrium due to the hole in the wall that separates the two. This already oxygenated blood is then sent back to the lung for oxygen, so the hole makes her heart work extra hard and ultimately operate inefficiently. Problems should be minimal right now because of this, but later in life people see elevated blood pressure, fatigue, and other symptoms, so that is why it needs to be corrected if it does not self-correct by age 3. However, normally the first onset of these symptoms is not until adolescent age or later if left untreated. So, we will hope that for once Lexi falls in the big percentage by seeing this hole close on its own, and hope for once she doesn't excel at being unique.
Lexi also is starting to make strides developmentally. She recently has figured out how to get herself onto all fours. She normally doesn't stay in that position for long, and there is no forward movement yet, but she is starting to move her hands, so we hope she will start to crawl soon. We're just glad that besides the ear tubes surgery, we aren't facing any other surgeries in the near future, so she can continue her progress and development. If we have to face one down the road, we will deal with that then, but for now we are excited that she continues to show improvement in the right direction.
This weekend we headed back to one of our favorite cities, Chicago, where we are staying with friends Zeb and Jasmine. Today, we took Lexi on her first El ride. She was pretty entertained by the people on the train this morning, but we didn't have the true late night El crowd, which would have really entertained her!
We then stopped by Lincoln Park Zoo. Most of the animals were in hiding, since the air show was going on right overhead. However, we did see some lions, camels, zebras, and sea lions, and we had some great summer weather to walk around in Lincoln Park.
Then, our friends Ricky and Allison from Kellogg and their son Drew, who is about a month older than Lexi, met us for lunch at Cosi.
We let Lexi and Drew play a little bit in the booth, and they were having quite the baby conversation. Lexi also tried to put the moves on Drew by throwing her arms around him. Drew didn't object, and there was plenty of laughter between the two of them, so we think they might be off to a good start.
