Appointment Update

Cohen woke up bright and early this morning at 4:30 am because he was so excited for his appointments. Our first stop was to pick up Auntie Karen who came along to help out. Our second stop was the Woods drive thru for coffee. Then we hit the road for Children's. There really wasn't much traffic and it was a pretty smooth drive.

 {How cute is he!?}

Our first appointment was for Cohen to get his echo. He was very cooperative and happily ate his bottle while the tech looked at his heart. Then he got an EKG and we met with the cardiologist. The cardiologist told us that his is heart is now only slightly enlarged. He said it was almost back to normal! He also said that they didn't see a PDA! It finally closed on it's own!! Hooray! Cohen's EKG was also normal which is good since his heart was enlarged and can cause some EKG changes. We were very encouraged by Cohen's good report on his heart.

We had an hour between appointments so we found a spot without people around and sat and waited for our appointment with the pulmonologist. Cohen spent most of the day naked, wrapped in his fuzzy blanket because we knew we were just going to have to keep taking his clothes off for him to be examined. Cohen was well behaved the whole time, sleeping through his hour wait, eating another bottle when we got into his exam room, and then happily playing while he was examined. Dr W came in and said that he was happy with the progress that Cohen had made and with the report on his heart. We talked about his oxygen and he said that since Cohen's heart is still a tiny bit enlarged and he wasn't on any extra nutritional support other than straight breastmilk he was comfortable leaving him on his oxygen. He feels that the oxygen will help Cohen continue to grow by just giving him a little extra support so his body can use his energy for growing instead of working to breathe. The next step will either be going to wearing oxygen 12 hours a day or maybe just coming off of it altogether. We'll see!

Cohen will also get a chest xray from his primary care doctor just so that they have a baseline. At this point, Dr W said that he doesn't expect Cohen's xray to look normal with his lung disease. If, well actually he said when, Cohen gets sick they want to have something to compare it to so that a) nobody overreacts over something that is his normal and b) they will be able to tell if something has changed and is different.

So, we follow up with his cardiologist in a few months to make sure that Cohen's heart continues to look better and maybe even completely normal. We also follow up with the pulmonologist in 6 weeks. We also have ROP exams and a follow up with Cohen's primary care doctor in 2 weeks. Whew, lots of appointments. I will be glad when this all slows down. But, it's all worth it for our little mighty man.