It's a Christmas Miracle!

Dallin had a check up with a cardiologist last week. This was his first time seeing a cardiologist here in Indiana. He got an EKG like he has gotten for every visit and everything looked normal (like it does every time). We met with the doctor, talked for a bit and she was pleased to hear how well Dallin has been doing. (Her file on Dallin included all of his recent hypercalcemia adventures in the hospital.) She asked when the last time was that he had gotten an echocardiogram (heart ultrasound). I realized that he hadn't had one performed since he was 2 months old and still on oxygen. Since it had been almost 18 months since his last echo, she decided it would be good to do one that day while we were there to see how things were going in there.

He did so much better this time with the echo than he did when he was a screaming newborn. He really just wanted to play with the ultrasound wand and the goo on his chest. After the technician finished, she called the doctor in to look at the images. The doctor saw them and wanted to look at Dallin herself with the machine. That worried me a little, thinking that she saw something that might look serious and wanted to find it for herself. She spent a few minutes studying Dallin's heart and then told us what she saw.

She said that his narrow pulmonary valve (the whole reason why he has to see a cardiologist) is barely even there anymore. He still has a slight heart murmur, and the narrowing is still there, but it's very slight. She said she would categorize it as VERY mild pulmonary stenosis. We were so happy to hear that great news. His check ups with the cardiologist have been every 6 months, but she said that we didn't need to come back for another 9 months, and if things were still looking good then (as she expects them to be), we might lengthen the time between visits to a year. I'm so happy about this! It's great to hear that something is going well. Most people with Williams Sydrome will have either aortic stenosis or pulmonic stenosis. With aortic stenosis, it usually gets worse over time as the child grows up. We feel very lucky that Dallin only has the pulmonic stenosis, because that mostly gets better with time and is usually cleared up on its own in infancy.

Dallin has also been doing very well with his calcium levels. He gets his blood drawn every few weeks (it sucks, I know) to monitor the calcium. His most recent number from last week was 9.9 for his total calcium. The normal range is 7-10.5. He's finally in the normal range for something! The kidney specialist said that now that his calcium is at a good level, we can start cutting back on his medication doses and see how his levels continue to do with less medication. You have no idea how happy that makes me, even though it has only cut out 2 medication doses. I'll take what I can get.

In short, Dallin's heart is great, his calcium is low, and he's gaining weight.

It's a Christmas Miracle!

(No, Dallin did not get really huge, it's just a miniature tree.)