Annual trip to Dr. Rhodes
As most know, Jess has an ASD and aortic coarctation both of which were repaired very well in China. Each year we go to visit Dr. Rhodes at Boston Children's Hospital's satellite office in Weymouth. The first 2 times we went, we could barely get the ekg done. We couldn't get an echo done those times due to the thrashing and screaming. That second year the tech took it very personally and wanted to keep trying. Thankfully another tech stepped in and said that since the pedal pulse was good and the ekg was good, they were going to forego the echo. Last year we were able to get an echo done with Jess lying on top of me and my holding her. That was a LONG 45 minutes. If I'd known they were going to let me lie down with her on top of me, I wouldn't have drank a large ice tea prior to it. This year went great. The night before I looked up videos on Youtube to show her. The ekg one was of a large man who had to get his chest shaved so we fastforwarded through that part and just watched where they put the stickers on. Then we watched a video of a little boy having an echo done. Jess seemed reassured by the child on the video saying the jelly tickled.

Jess is waiting for the nurse practitioner to put her stickers on for the ekg.


She said the stickers tickled on her sides. After the EKG she got a ring from the prize box.


Jess lay as still as a 4 year old can for the echo. She chose a Wiggles dvd to watch. Jason came with us this time and liked watching the machines showing Jess's heart.


All done and a good report from the doctor! This year was the first they were able to compare the echo to another since last year was the first one completed. He said her EKG was totally normal and the echo showed that the repairs are great. He said they'll really watch that during the adolescent growth spurts since coarctations don't always stretch well. The other thing we'll watch is she has a piece of tissue under the duct that is very small. If it gets bigger, it'll need to be removed. Dr. Rhodes said with yearly echos, they'll be able to see changes and take care of it long before it would be a problem. Sounds good to me! She has no restrictions and is cleared to take gymnastics in the fall.

We told Jess she could choose wherever she wanted to go for lunch. She chose The Moose (aka Bugaboo Creek.