This visit took two days!! This round of tests included:

- Chest Xrays

- CT Scan

- Ultrasound

- Blood Tests

- Kidney Function Tests

All the tests came back fine.

We were a little worried about a mole that appeared on her head. Dermatology took a look and determined that nothing was wrong.

In May we had Jennifer looked at by an ENT (ear, nose and throat doctor) as other doctors had noted her tonsils are quite large. The strangeness of Hemihypertrophy also showed up in her tongue which is also enlarged on the right side. Many other Hemi kids require surgery to reduce the size of the tongue. The doctor advised us that unless she had trouble sleeping or gets lots of throat infections they will hold off. Basically she has gone through enough surgeries in the last two years to put her through that.

Jennifer was also diagnosed with a PDA (Patent Ductus Arteriosus). This is unusual since most cases are diagnosed at birth. We found out about the heart murmur at the same time as she was diagnosed with Wilm's Tumor and Hemihypertrophy. One of the doctors was listening to her heart and heard the heart murmur. She asked us if we were aware of the problem, which we were not.

Later tests to determine if the Chemo drugs had affected heart also showed the blood flowing in the wrong direction. The technician at the time said that this should be fixed. As a result Jennifer's heart is enlarged on one side due to the extra effort required to pump blood. Once we finally met with the Heart Surgeon, he felt the PDA is quite small and could wait until the other treatments for cancer were complete.

Well after many cancellations Jennifer had the surgery on June 29th. What was supposed to be a small PDA ended up being quite large and required a large coil to close. We knew through the 3 other surgeries that she has had that she would have problems with the anesthetic. We requested that she be allowed to stay longer to ensure she doesn't start the uncontrollable vomiting. Well it was the Friday before a long weekend and the nurses basically pulled all the plugs and sent us on our way. Back we were the next day. After some anti-nausea medicine, Jennifer was back home a day later.

We will need to get some tests in 6 months to confirm the coil has been successful.

Summer Doctor's Visit

This was probably one of the fastest visits we have ever experienced. One thing you learn to deal with or just plain have to put up with is waiting. In this case we flew through all the tests and were home.

This visit included all the usual tests. Jennifer of course hates getting the IV line in. A few times nurses have stated that "it gets better". Wrong! Jennifer is getting stronger as she growing up and it takes a couple of us to hold her down as they give her the IV.

We are still awaiting the formal results of the tests, but all look well from the preliminaries.

 

Will try to write sooner.

The Godin's