Jessica had her cardiac check-up at Oxford yesterday and on the whole, she is doing very well. Her sats were a little on the low side when they were first checked (around 72) but then when they were rechecked after her echo were back up to the usual low 80s which was reassuring. Her heart function looks good but the team were unable to get good views of her left pulmonary artery. They are not concerned about this as Jessica appears to be well at the moment, with reasonable colour and plenty of energy but they want to have a better idea of how well her pulmonary arteries are growing before they start thinking about her Fontan and so they are considering how best to get the information they need. It may be that they can check the pulmonary arteries through doing a CT scan or perhaps Jessica will need to have a cardiac catheter early in the new year. We will keep you updated when we know more about what the plan will be.
Jessica is gaining weight well – she weighed in at 11.7kg (25lb 12oz) yesterday. Her cough seems to be much better now as well and she has been her usual happy self over the last couple of weeks. She is sleeping much better now and is enjoying being a big sister – Sophie gets a lot of love from her big sister and Jessica likes to try and play with her. The other day she was holding Sophie’s hands and guiding her through the actions to ‘Wind The Bobbin Up’ (very gently!) which was just delightful to watch. She is getting much more imaginative with her playtime now and it is lovely to watch her pretending things – using wooden puzzle pieces as a phone, making her ‘In The Night Garden’ figures ‘talk’ to each other, cooking things on her toy stove and telling us they are ‘hot’ – so lovely to watch.
We have had a lovely day today at the Friends of PICU Christmas party (Sophie’s first ever party) and Jessica enjoyed herself very much. It is lovely to see how much more she enjoyed it this year – she really took an interest in what the children’s entertainer was doing and did some dancing and thoroughly enjoyed seeing Ellie the elephant and Father Christmas. Sophie, on the other hand, slept through it all!
We have another Christmas party to go to in a couple of weeks’ time (the Families of Ocean Ward party) and Jessica will also be taking part in our fundraising concert for Friends of PICU – ‘Spirit of Christmas’ which we will be performing at Christ Church in Uxbridge on Saturday 14th December. More details are available here if you are interested in coming along. Sophie will also be making her stage debut in this concert!
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