Happy 2nd Birthday, Destin!!!

The boy is 2 today. We had a great party for him down at Grandma and Grandpa Stackpole's house.

The turn out was great; weather was great; Gran and Pop Pop are even in town. He went swimming; played around with his friends; and made a mess with his birthday cake.

Thanks to everyone who made it a great day!

A Little More Detail

So our day yesterday started at 4:15 AM. Destin was up. We had set our alarm for 4:30 AM. We had a hunch that Destin knew something was going on.

We got to the hospital at 6:15 AM. Dave/Dad/Pop Pop was already there. Russ and Nancy (Grandma and Grandpa) were there shortly after. Our first stop was A.M. Admissions. Sheri, Destin and I were transferred to a room to wait on the doctor and anesthesiologist. Marilyn was our nurse. She took Destin's weight, height, vitals and talked to us a little bit about the procedure.

Once Dr. Miller(pediatric cardiologist) and Dr. Aashiem(anesthesiologist) were ready, we were transferred upstairs to the Cardio Vascular Lab. Dr. Aashiem talked to us about the anesthesia she was going to use. Dr. Miller followed to talk to us about the procedure again. After we signed the consent forms they took Destin back to the OR. This was about 8:15 AM.

We waited until 10:40 AM. Dr. Miller came in to tell us that everything went fine. We were transferred to the recovery room for an hour. Our recovery nurse was Patricia. He had an ekg in recovery and everything was normal.

From there we went up to the pediatric floor, Room 816. Becca was our nurse. He was pretty groggy for the next couple hours. It was nice to have our own room. All of us were able to hang out with Destin while the anesthesia wore off. They took him down for an x-ray around lunchtime. He wasn't really interested in eating. Around 3:30 PM we went to the play room on the floor. They had the same Fisher Price aquarium that Destin has at home. He batted that around the room for awhile. Pop Pop had to leave at 4 PM to catch his plane back to Dallas. Around 4:15, we headed back to the room and Destin eat some pudding and bananas.

Dr. Miller came back in around 5:15 and they did an echocardiogram. This is basically an ultrasound of his heart. Everything looked great. He did mention that there still could be a tiny place where blood is sneaking through. This is normal and should be closed up within a month. He listened to Destin's heart and everything sounded fine. We were discharged within the hour.

I got a kick out something Dr. Miller said. After Destin's heart was repaired it grew to about 2x the size of a normal heart for his age. This is a normal occurance, but I got a kick out of the reason why. He said it was because Destin's heart is so much stronger then most kids his age. How could I argue with that?

We were out the door just after 6 PM. Amazing that all this happened within 12 hours.

The boy with the heart of a lion is home. He had a great night and a great day today. We've had a hard time trying to slow him down today! Dr. Miller said he'd be fine.

More news tomorrow...

Heart Cath Procedure - SUCCESS

Destin's heart procedure was a success! We were really glad. Big thanks to the team at Presbyterian/St. Luke's. And I can't stop to thank everyone else for their thoughts, prayers, and well wishes. We are truly blessed to have such great family and friends.

That's all I'll say for now since it's been an extremely long day. I do hope to provide more details tomorrow night.

Procedure Tomorrow

Just a quick note to say that we are getting ready for Destin's heart procedure scheduled for tomorrow.

We are ready for the operation as well as to get it behind us. I am hoping to get a recap up tomorrow night after the pea packer has gone to bed.

Thank you to everyone for your continued thoughts and prayers, they are helping very much!

Cruisin'

We're just gliding through the week. Feeding school (Toomey Clinic) was good on Monday. Becky ended up coming today(Wednesday). We are making some final arrangements for Destin's birthday party next weekend. The Project Manager("Sheri") has got me on a few tasks.

Tomorrow is my last day of work for the week. I'm going to hike Handies Peak with a group from work.

A couple new things for the D-man...

Destin has been doing a little waddle on his knees lately. He'll start with a crawl then push up to be on his knees and take a few "steps". He'll then quickly go back to crawl mode. It's pretty hilarious to watch.

His new favorite game is something we are calling "Pounce". It is played by Sheri or me laying on our back on the ground. Destin comes over and "pounces" on us. A "pounce" is done from a kneeling position. Two pea packer hands are slammed into the chest or stomach area. In turn we say, "Pounce!" He'll then pull back and pounce again. All steps are repeated until he is bored. He laughs, we laugh, it's quite a workout!

Mellow Weekend

So I feel bad for dropping news like my last post and then bailing for 4 days...

We've had a few days to process the situation, and we are still a little scared, but we are ready to deal with it. We've heard that it's a very routine procedure. Thanks to everyone for their continued thoughts and prayers!

There have been a lot of good things going on lately with Destin. He went back to visit his friend Cindy at the Amaryllis Clinic. We are going to start seeing her again twice a month. At this most recent visit, Cindy was amazed at how much the pea packer has improved.

Destin is doing better with his eating. He took a bite off of a graham cracker! It happened the first time on Monday at feeding school (Kay Toomey Clinic). After he chewed it up, he put his head down and went to sleep. He's done it a couple more times this week, and has stayed awake afterwards.

Last week was pretty busy with Sheri and Destin having their usual schedule. I was in Pottstown, PA for business. It was a good trip. I was able to see some of the Hirsch Clan: Mom Mom, Josh, Chuck, Zack, Barry, Gail, and Melissa.

This past weekend was pretty nice. Sheri and I were able to sneak away and see Wedding Crashers. Grandma and Grandpa Stackpole watched Destin. We crashed down there because we had a birthday party for Emersen Dodge today.

Her party was a pool party. Destin and I were able to play around in the pool. He had a blast. The pool was set up for more kids, so he
could stand up in the water and hold on to the side. They had a lazy river, and cool fountains.

Next week will be much like last week. I'm hoping to have some screen time to keep everyone posted on things.

Our Next Hurdle

So I've been away for awhile again and, there is a ton to talk about. I don't think I'll be able to get into it all now, but there is one thing I'd like to mention.

Sheri took Destin to his cardiologist appointment yesterday. They did a full EKG (echocardiogram) along with some x-rays. The cardiologist determined that Destin has a 6mm hole in his heart. This is a moderate Atrial Septal Defect. Basically this means that Destin's heart and lungs have to work harder then normal.

The procedure to fix this is the inserting of an occluder, which will fill the hole. The doctor will run a catheter through Destin's leg up to his heart to implant the device. I'll stop here, because I'm getting a little woozy myself.

It's our next hurdle, and we'll get through it fine. I'm sorry that I just have fairly bad news to report today. There are wonderful things that Destin has accomplished in the past week and a half that I want to talk about.