Always get a second opinion!

Today in Philadelphia the world went from upside down to rightside up for us. After a team of cardiologists spent more than an hour performing an exhaustive echocardiagram on little sedated Maya, Dr. R gave us his findings and opinion - no ASD (hole in heart), PFO gone, PDA very small and of no significance in regard to blood oxygenation and the PAPVR, being only one of 4 or 5 veins returning pulmonary blood, is not significant enough to cause current respiratory illness or future problems, and that no enlargement of her right ventricle was noticed. So basically he told us there is no need for surgery and he expects that, other than the PDA closure that will still be needed via a catheter, she should have annual echocardiagrams to watch the heart, but that she should have a normal life without pulmonary hypertension, as the pressure differential should be too small to lead to pulmonary hypertension. He said when we get her catheterized again to close the PDA, have them measure the pressure differential. We plan on having this done in Boston as a sort of 3rd expert look at the situation and because we have heard terrible news twice now in Hartford that turned out to be, well, at the least, overly dire.

So thank you all for your good juju, prayers, dedicatory yoga sessions, etc. They seem to have taken a sad song, and made it better. Maya was so excited in Philly seeing the tall buildings, the buses, the crowds of people...she was literally squealing with joy much of the time. After the good news, so was I on the inside. And Brianna was well-behaved and a very concerned sister who loves Maya very much.