Today we have great news. Just got back from an echocardiogram.
Ashlynn has been discharged from Doernbecker's Children's hospital.
She's been on a watch the past year and half with her heart issues...
Today she has been given a thumbs up. They say that her murmur is an
innocent murmur. It may come and go in her life...but shouldn't cause
her any problems in the valves the pulmonary arteries are growing so we
can avoid the balloon and etc. She is 35x36 in size...a pound per
foot. They say she is the size of a 4 year old - has everything to do
with her mysterious genetics-but that she might hit a growth spurt here
pretty quick. Anyway, happy to put this behind us. She has such great
energy we're sure she just refused it to be any other way.

Now we can focus on Ryan's upcoming surgery. He will be going into
Doernbecher's on the 24th of July. They plan to do a tonsillectomy and
adenoidectomy. Surgery to remove these lymph's that have been riddled
with bacteria. They hope that it helps him breathe better when he gets
lung infections, when the asthma shrinks his airways and etc. He will
be recovering for about 2 -3 weeks following the surgery - they say the
pain of the surgery isn't so bad it does accelerate and worsens up to 6
or 7 days following. Because we use our mouth for a lot of things like
talking, eating, breathing....he'll be pretty miserable - but we have
high hopes that this will only help him with some of the issues he's
been dealing with - and hope to avoid another NICU week long stay, when
he gets really bad.

Anyway no swimming lessons for Ryan this summer but hopefully
next year he'll be able to join more his age. He reached his IEP in
preschool and will be able to transfer to kindergarten at the same
school Audrey is at....will be nice to have them just down the hall from
each other rather than across town.

Always much to be grateful for! Have had some great trips this past
month and look forward to one more to Idaho(maybe Ut) before surgery, if
possible.
Love,
Melissa

posted by Cathy Crandall at 1:16 PM