It IS the week for HEARTS...

... but this topic isn't about the Valentine's Day lovey-dovey heart stuff.  It's about the REAL heart.  Justin's actual organ.  It is kind of comical that this would be the week we would be getting answers about it though.. the day before Valentine's Day and all!

I try not to express my medical worries about my kids over the blog until I have definite answers so I haven't really offered up this information before now and thankfully I can write about this without tears in my eyes because despite the worry and fear Jonathan and I felt for a short period of time, the answers were good ones.

I am sure you all remember in June of 2011 when Justin had his first (and only one we are aware of to this date) febrile seizure.  While he was being evaluated the day following the seizure, the pediatrican noted that he had a murmur.  He asked if we had ever been told of it before, and we had never heard of it before.  He let me listen to it, and I could tell exactly what he was referring to.  Since we were six months away from Justin's 3-year well check, he suggested that we just monitor and re-eval at the 3-year visit.  During that visit, they could not hear the murmur at all.  Our pediatrician explained that there was a normal murmur heard a lot in children (especially thin children) and it was typically just a normal echo of the blood flowing through the cavities of the heart so we weren't going to stress about it.  I had almost forgotten about the incident all together by the time his 4-year visit came.  Then we were sitting there during the exam, and I noticed the pediatrician spending A LOT more time listening to Justin's heartbeat.. a lot more than normal.  Before he could even say anything, I asked him if he was hearing a murmur.  He said he was actually.  Justin had a little bit of a cough that week, and it seems that it is when he is sick that they tend to hear his murmur more.  Our ped hesitated, trying to decide if it was significant enough to send Justin for a cardio eval, and he explained that it was probably normal but that he would rather play it safe and have us go. 

When we arrived at the cardiologist's office today, I wasn't that concerned.  Our pediatrician is excellent at playing things safe so I wasn't that worried that we were going to hear anything other than it was normal.  I started worrying when the cardiologist even spent more time listening than what seemed normal.  After listening extensively, he explained to me that Justin actually has two heart murmurs.  One is the completely normal one that we had been hoping for.  The other sounded like Justin had a hole in his heart.  My gut sank to the floor about then.  To make matters worse, we just had a friend whose son (age 6) had a stroke due to an undiagnosed hole in his heart so that's all I could think of.  He wanted an echocardiogram ordered to confirm his suspicions and thankfully they were able to do it that day.  I had texted Jonathan and we were both just so sick to our stomachs awaiting those results.

Since this is already a storybook, I will skip all the points of the echo and get straight to the end.  Justin does have a hole in his heart (a VSD.. ventricular septal defect), but thankfully it is not one that can cause him any complications in life.  He said that at the very most it makes him a little higher risk for an infection of the heart, but that is super, super rare and fingers crossed, Justin's still has time to close up.  We are hoping that by age 6, it will be closed up anyway.  We will return in two years to repeat the echo and see if his has closed. 

Here is the picture we were given to show where Justin's hole is in his heart.  If it were larger, it also may be an issue but Justin's is very, very small.

BIG Feet!

The shoe feddish continues.. this week it is mommy's tennis shoes that Ryan is sporting.

Our Student of Excellence

Today we attended an award ceremony at Katelynn's school.  She received an "Award of Excellence" for getting all "3's" on her report card.  (They don't grade in A,B,C at her age so it's a 1,2,3 number system instead.)  We are proud of our little student!

The Greatest Show on Earth: The Ringling Bros Circus!

After seeing the circus animals come to town by the train, the kids had been counting down until the day they were able to attend the circus, and that day finally arrived.  We headed down to Charlotte early and had lunch at Firehouse Subs, then attended the preshow where we were able to walk around the stage and meet some of the fun people of the circus!

 

This was by far the greatest moment of the circus for Justin.  He LOVED watching the dirtbike guys ride in the circus acts.. and even better he met two of the drivers and got to sit on a bike!  Katelynn didn't want to sit on it, but I got her to at least stand in the picture.

Some of the preshow acts included the kids.  Only Justin participated in the dance party.

Then Katelynn and Ryan participated in the congo line where you did the limbo at the end of it.

And then for the most exciting part- Ryan was picked to help out one of the clowns in his magic trick of spinning a ball on his finger.  Of course this was huge.  Ryan loves balls.  He went right out there on stage in front of everyone in complete awe (and notice he matched the clown.. ha,ha).  Sadly, they weren't facing me so I didn't get the picture very clearly but Ryan balanced the ball on his own finger for a moment!

Afterwards we enjoyed a really awesome show!  Everyone was very interested the entire time.. Ryan did fall asleep for a bit, but when he was awake he was pretty amazed!

Ice Cream and the Park? Yes, please!

It had been such a beautiful afternoon watching the circus parade that we decided to make the most of this unusually warm January weather and head to the park... but not before we stopped by the gas station and loaded up on some popsicles/ice cream for a little treat!

 

 

This was probably the first time we have been at the park since Ryan can navigate on his own.  It is both scary (for mommy) and exciting (for Ryan) to be able to do almost everything the big kids can!

 

Justin is getting a little too daring for mommy's liking.. he thinks he needs to climb up higher than high on anything he can.  This was nothing compared to the other obstacle he was climbing (I wasn't willing to take a picture as I stood there praying I could catch him if he fell...)

 

 Katelynn has officially mastered the pole.  Last year I had to help her get from the platform to the pole to slide down.  This year she did it all on her own.  Those long legs help!

 

The Circus Comes to Town!!

We haven't taken the kids to the circus since Justin's 1st birthday so we were due for another visit.  We found out it was coming the weekend after Justin's birthday and asked Grandma and Grandpa Miller to make a visit to the circus Justin's birthday present.  Then to my excitment, I found out that they were arriving by train this afternoon and would be walking the elephants and horses through the streets of Charlotte to the stadium.  It sounded like such an awesome experience.  I was so geeked about it that I actually picked up Katelynn early from school just so she wouldn't miss out on the experience. 

We met up with Justin's friend, Aaron (which is how we found out about it in the first place).  The kids were excited as they awaited the elephants departing the train..

The elephants were so close to us, we probably could have reached out and touched them.. or close to it.  It was pretty cool to be able to see them walking along the streets!  They walked tail to nose and the horses followed them.

 

Afterwards, we were able to get a great view of the Ringling Bros Train that the animals had arrived on as it moved off one set of tracks to park for the remainder of the week.

 

 

Happy 4th Birthday, Justin!

Yesterday might have been the party, but today is officially the day we welcomed our little boy into the world four years ago.  He continued his birthday celebration by bringing ice cream cone cupcakes to school to share with his friends.  I took him out to lunch after school and then to Target for him to buy himself a present with his birthday money from his Great-Grandma.  Does it surprise you at all that he picked a remote control four wheeler out?  :)

After picking up Katelynn from school, we headed to Chuck-E-Cheese to spend the evening.  Grandma and Grandma Miller joined us and of course we had to do one more candle on his real birthday!