Our spitfire of a Princess and her Heart Wellness Checkup

What a slacker I have been the past two weeks on not posting any new entries on our blog! It isn't that I haven't wanted to write something, I just would rather post uplifting things rather than downer things. This is my only form of journal keeping so I feel like it is therapeutic for me to keep up to date on the happenings with our little family even if some things aren't so happy some times to write about. I guess you gotta have the good with the not so good. The last Tuesday in January we took Karmindy in for her heart wellness checkup in Orem. Dr. Day is her cardiologist and he is wonderful. We first went and got her xray taken at Utah Valley Medical Center which was quite an experience. Anyone who knows my spit fire of a daughter will appreciate this little story. After getting called back to have her chest xray done, the Xray tech strapped Karmindy into a torture looking device and asked me to hold Karmindys hands above her head. As I started to do this, of course my daughter starts to scream and alert the whole hospital that she, the little princess, isn't happy! It was pretty funny! I must not have been doing a good job of holding her hands above her head so the Xray tech took over. (I was glad because I was trying to soothe her and hold her hands above her head at the same time so I was really glad that the tech took over. I was happy she did because I didn't want to be the bad guy.) While the tech held Karmindys hands above her head, Karmindy screamed and screamed. In fact, Mark was out in the waiting room (which was down the hall and around the corner) with Kaleb and Kaleb turned to Mark and said, "Dad, is that my baby sister Karmindy crying?" After the xrays were taken, the tech came over and was trying to tell Karmindy she had done a good job and also tell her how beautiful she was. Karmindy wanted nothing to do with her and when the tech tried to touch her arm, Karmindy pulled it away and gave her the stink eye. Just shortly after this, several of the guy technicians came over and were telling her how beautiful and cute she was. Karmindy immediately turned on the charms and started cooing and smiling at them. (Our daughter loves men and this was hilarious for me to see her flirting with them.) The tech that had taken her picture came back over and was like, "Hey, she didn't do that for me!" When Karmindy saw her come over she went rigid and again went from smiling to glaring at her. We are going to have to watch our daughter with the men I am afraid. After coming out of the Radiology Area, I told Mark everything and he immediately said, "I think I might need to invest in a shot gun!" It was really too funny.
After getting Karmindys xrays taken, we took Karmindy to her appointment. We were hoping for a clean bill of health and be on our way. When Karmindy had her open heart surgery back in May we were told that her holes in her heart were fix and they would be a one time fix. Her Co arc on the other hand had the chance of returning but the likelihood of it happening was slim. We have been preparing ourselves for this just in case but didn't plan on Dr. Day finding a murmur in her aorta confirming that it might be returning. He told us that it could be one of two things causing the murmur. The first is scar tissue that could be causing it and if that is it he was hoping that it would grow with her and nothing would be done. The second scenario is that her aorta could be narrowing again which would require some sort of IV that would be threaded up her leg and into her aorta. They would balloon the aorta out. If they were to do this then she would have to have a stint put in when she is a teenager. Dr. Day also went on to say that if the stint was placed that she wouldn't likely be able to have kids. During the birthing process any pushing would cause an aneurysm in the area. After I heard this I kind of tuned Dr. Day out. I was devastated. I was in such a tizzy that I didn't think to ask whether she could have kids by c-section or not because the news was just so overwhelming but I am hoping this will be an option later on for her and that she will be able to have kids if she so chooses. Dr. Day went on to say that they couldn't do anything for her now and that we just need to wait and time will tell. We will take her back when she is 18 months old. Almost a year from now! It was such hard news to swallow. We are hoping and praying that the murmur is being caused by scar tissue and that her body will grow with it and adapt. We are grateful though that Karmindy has such a will to live and that she has such a fiery little personality. It gives me comfort that Heavenly Father has let her be with us thus far and we are hoping that he will provide a way for her to stay with us for along time by providing further developments in technologies that will help her and other kids that our born with congenital heart disease. I think that Karmindy has a lot to do here on this earth and she has already overcome so much thus far in her life. We love our little girl and her example of courage and enduring!