Three years post-Glenn, postboxes and preschool concerts

It is three years today since Jessica had her Glenn procedure, her most recent open heart-surgery and as always it is a day on which I find myself reflecting on how far she has come and how very blessed that we are to have had these last three years in which to watch her grow and develop and become the beautiful, wonderful little person that she is.  There are no words to describe just how grateful we are to the surgical team for getting her through on that day, all the wonderful staff on PICU and Ocean Ward, her cardiac team in Oxford and all the love and prayers of our family and friends who have helped get us through this journey so far.  A huge thank you to you all.  We will be having some cake later today in celebration of this little milestone.

Jessica’s first term at preschool has been a happy one – she has settled in so wonderfully and made some friends.  It was a joy to be able to see her taking part in her first preschool concert just before Easter and whilst she was too little overwhelmed by the sea of faces to join in with the singing, she was quite happy to sit on her key worker’s lap and join in with the actions to the songs.  Her preschool have been brilliant with regards to trying to be as well-informed as possible with regards to Jessica’s heart condition and how best to support her learning experience and are already being proactive with regards to thinking about a health care plan before Jessica starts primary school next year.  

We were also very proud of both girls for receiving signing certificates at their Tiny Talk class before Easter – Jessica can now do over 75 signs and Sophie received her 25 signs certificate.  These days Jessica’s constant chatter means that there is less need to be able to communicate through signing but she and Sophie both love going to toddler signing each week.

We enjoyed catching up with some other heart families at the Little Hearts Matter open day at the end of last month and attended some interesting talks about exercise, preparing for primary school and life post-Fontan which have given us some food for thought.  We also enjoyed celebrating with our friends Alex and Sarah at their twins’ naming day and Jessica and Sophie enjoyed being able to run about outside in the sunshine!

We have enjoyed some time away as a family over the last couple of weeks, travelling around the country on our quest to find the rest of the gold postboxes! We have now visited all 46 of the Paralympic ones as well as finding one extra Olympic one that wasn’t on our original list and have only the Olympic gold postbox on the Isle of Man left to visit before we have done them all! It is lovely to look back over the photos from the last three years of our gold postbox challenge and see how Jessica has grown up over this time (and see Sophie starting to be part of the challenge too!)

Jessica enjoyed staying at “the moon” each night (otherwise known as Premier Inn but it sounds so much more fun to go to the moon each night) and as she slept in a single bed throughout the whole trip, we realised it was high time we took the sides off her cot and converted it into a bed (something we hadn’t got around to as she has always seemed happy in her cot and never made any attempt to climb out).  So far she seems quite happy in it and loves her new Peppa Pig duvet set!

Whilst on our holidays, we also enjoyed celebrating with our friends Rachel and James at their wedding – both Jessica and Sophie enjoyed the ceilidh in the evening and Jessica did a pretty good attempt at the Gay Gordons! We also got to catch up with godmummy Gillian and attend the Palm Sunday service at her church – it was lovely to meet some of the people there who have been praying for Jessica.  We had a lovely afternoon at soft play whilst visiting Gillian although Jessica did give us a bit of a fright by managing to slip out of the toddler area without us noticing and the couple of minutes between realising she wasn’t in the toddler area and discovering her in the bigger kids area felt rather long!

We visited lots of places on our trip around the country – Urquhart Castle on the banks of Loch Ness, the RRS Discovery in Dundee (which is the ship that took Scott on his first trip to the Antarctic), the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, the National Showcaves in Wales (where Jessica enjoyed seeing all the dinosaurs in the dinosaur park and painting her own dinosaur picture) and also got to catch up with our friends Fred, Steph and Cecilia and Neil and Sandra on the way home.

Since being home, Jessica has been enjoying spending time with some of her cousins on Michael’s side of the family as cousins Elisabetta, Seren and Siân have all come over for a visit and this weekend will see her enjoying time with her other cousins on my side of the family as Auntie Fizz, Ebony and Erin are coming to stay.

Heart-wise, things seem to be stable at present – Jessica’s sats were slightly lower at her last community nurse check-up at around 78-80 but she seems well in herself and not noticeably bluer than usual.