Life is really, really sweet for us at the moment.
Is it okay to crow for a little bit?
Let me go back to Friday.
We had a Starship Clinic on Friday. The Starship clinic is when the cardiologist comes down from Auckland and checks in on all the cardiac kids in Wellington that need to be seen. We’ve been down for this clinic for a while – an echo, an ECG, an X ray. A state of the nation on how well his pulmonary replacement is holding out since his repair last August.
When he had his Rastelli, they said he would need open heart surgery again in the next 1-8 years. It has been a hard kind of time frame to come to grips with. You see quite a few conduits can fail in the first few years after a repair – they start leaking, or regurgitating, or calcifying, but many last a pretty long time.
Anyway, on Friday they came to the conclusion that Albie’s repair looks absolutely pristine. The conduit shows no sign of deterioration and Nigel Wilson, the cardiologist, said he would be “..gravely disappointed if Albie didn’t make it to 5 or 6 years old before needing more surgery – and he might even make it to 10.”
And with that, we effectively got discharged from Starship. We’ll get seen here in Wellington just once a year. And that’s it.
There is of course an inevitability to him needing open heart surgery again – he will slowly get unwell again. BUT, and it is a big glorious BUT, it will be at least two more years away – and hopefully many more.
One of the doctors in the meeting said that we can take a well-earned break from being heart parents for a while. The happiest holiday I can imagine!
So that was Friday. And then today, we sold our house. Which in the shadow of the great news about Happy Zoosee the week before last and now Albie, is actually paltry stuff. Cool – but paltry. It has been a happy home for the last seven years but it is time for our family to move on to something new.
I wondered last night whether this would be the end of me writing here for a while. It started as a place to tell you all about Albie’s heart, and now, well, there won’t be much to say about that for a while.
I didn’t wonder about stopping writing for long. I have too much to say to stop now. It’s like all the yang time is catching up with our yin time. And it’s totally, totally glorious.
Wonderful, glorious, rainbow coloured news. So happy for all four of you!
Very very cool news Sarah. Love and hugs to all of you. X
so wonderful to read your mail love to oyu all xxxxx
It’s great when good things come in threes! Keep up with the blog and good luck with the move xx
brilliant news, very happy for you all. Albie is such a star. Please don’t stop posting, you are a wonderful writer and we all love hearing the updates xx
I’m so happy to read the news about Albie’s heart! And a bit sad we won’t get an easy chance to get to know you better now that you’re moving away. You’ll always be more than welcome back in the ‘hood. 🙂
So so happy and excited for you guys xxxxx
Thats wonderful wonderful news, think of you a lot.
What wonderful news, I pray God will continue to smile on you all.
O for Orsome 😀 and yay for you not stopping writing too – what would we all do without our Albie updates?!! hehe
Wow!!!! (we’re just catching up now) We’re thrilled for Albie and all of you!!! woohooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We’re also very impressed with how sweetly Albie was watching his own echo in the pic. I will show this post to Ruben and hope that he’ll take it as inspiration to be nice and calm for his own echo in two weeks.
Sam’s saying he wishes we bought your house 😉
Fantastic news, Sarah! Please keep writing x
That is just so heartwarming Sarah and I can’t imagine the extent of your relief. So good to hear good news stories 🙂 and whatever and whenever you write you have such talent and inspire and have a lot of eager listeners!