Six years later

Dear friends,

Well, nearly six years have moved by since our last blog and that has seen lots of change: not only to Noah’s health and stature, but to social media (Twitter, SnapChat, InstaGram). A blog might now be considered “old school,” but it’s still an efficient way to pass information to friends.

So Noah is 14 years old now. Hard to believe that he’s lived longer in the US now than he did in China. He has really started to grow- he now weighs 80 pounds (he weighed 37 lbs. when we adopted him at age 6) and although he’s shorter than most 7th graders, he is up to 4ft 9in now, which often garners remarks of “You’re getting so tall!” from friends and family members.

So how’s he feeling? Well, I continue to ask him if he ever feels weak or loses some peripheral vision, and he replies, “No, I feel ok”. (He’s not a man of many words.) We had an annual checkup last October in Savannah with his pediatric cardiologist (Dr. Broderick), and the ECG (echocardiogram) showed some leaking around the valve installed in 2011. We were told, in 2012, by the way, that the initial repair generally lasts for 3-5 years before needing another repair (surgery through the sternum). So now that it’s been almost 7 years since that time, I feel we are on “borrowed time”, especially since Noah has gained so much weight and height— it seems that would be much more stress on the conduit that was installed by Dr. Hanley.

Tuesday, (March 20th) Noah and Robin drove back down to Savannah and he had a lung profusion scan- his first in 3 years - and that should help determine how things are “holding together” in his heart and pulmonary artery. Noah has a follow-up doctor’s appointment in April and we’ll update you when we know more. Thanks, as always, for your prayers!