Her heart is doing well

Kate had a follow-up cardiology appointment on Friday. She had an echo and all appears to be as expected. Her valve is leaking a small amount, but is working as expected. Her O2 saturation was 98%+, which is excellent. Her cardiologist told us to consider her 'normal' from a cardiac perspective! We'll see him again in about 6 months for a check-up.

Kate's weight has pretty much flat-lined at around 12 pounds for the past month. While we're happy she's not losing weight (she was for a while), we sure would like to get some meat on those bones! I'll be contacting her doctors this week to discuss the issue.

Kelly and I also feel that Kate will likely need a G-tube (inserted directly to her stomach). She's had the NG tube (feeding tube from through her nose to her stomach) since Stanford and is still getting over half of her formula through it. Looks like she's going to need nutritional support for longer than expected, especially since we're struggling with weight gain. Although it will involve another 3 day hospital stay, ultimately we believe Kate will be better off with a more long term solution. The NG tube is definitely irritating to her and is a bit of a pain for us. I'll be contacting the GI specialists this week to start discussions about what this all entails.

Happy February!