For the Love of Mending Hearts: Test Post

I’m a Wife & Mom of 3-2 boys & a girl. Riley is 10, Drew is 8 & Jordan is 4. My sons keep my husband & I moving all the time with sports-baseball, football & basketball mainly. Jeremy & I play volleyball & softball so we are busy with that too. Jeremy works at UIHC as an Implementation Consultant (he trains on Epic currently). I have run a daycare out of my home for the last year. Prior to that I worked at the U as an Auditor (I know, I know) & a real estate agent/personal assistant.My daughter, Jordan, was born August 9, 2006. Just about everything about the pregnancy was "normal" and she was born by a scheduled C-section. She was born at 8 lbs 3 oz and 20 inches so she wasn't a small baby. She lost almost a whole pound before leaving the hospital but we were sent home thinking it was normal because all newborns lose weight when they are born. Her doctor thought she had heard a murmur but figured it was a ventricular murmur & it would close up on it's own as many babies are born with this. After 2 weeks, her doc didn't hear it anymore so no further testing was done at that time. Jordan had issues with her weight & growing overall. She dropped off the "curve" & created one of her own. We would go in throughout the year just to have her weight checked. We still didn't know that anything was wrong. At her 1 year wellness check, our doc thought she heard the murmur again. Her doc hadn’t heard her murmur before which we found out that can happen. Some are just silent until it starts to work harder or has some "wear and tear". This was a Friday. We were at the peds clinic at UIHC Monday doing tests & found out her heart issues. By Wednesday, we had her open heart surgery scheduled for the following Wednesday & was home by Sunday afternoon. Talk about a whirlwind!!Once we learned more about this condition, we learned that there were signs that we brushed off as Jordan just being Jordan. The sweating when she sleeps, not moving more than a 5 ft radius once she was put down even at 1, not eating much in one sitting along with her lack of growing (Failure to thrive just doesn't seem to fit to me when she is always smiling & laughing) were just a few of them that alone no one really thinks about but together may have brought up concerns. We don't ever remember her having blue spells or any other reasons for us to have her heart checked out prior.Now, a year later, Jordan has gotten bigger and starting to "catch up" to those her age. She is energetic & plays with everyone. She can take bumps and bruises I think better than her older brothers! We still worry about what is going on with her ticker because it changes at every one of her check ups. She still has a murmur & at her last visit in December, we found out that she also has subaortic narrowing. It is definitely something her doc is keeping an eye on.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Test Post

Cuddles From The Heart

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My Letter for Jordan

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