We had a clinic appointment today. Ben is looking awesome! His heart function is great. His lining is slightly less thick and he is looking wonderful. He is at 15 lbs 7 oz right now and 25 and 3/4 inches. So, they are going up on a couple of meds. He will take just a little bit more of his 2 anti-rejection meds and his magnesia. And, he will be going off of his prednisolone by next week. And then when he is off that he can go off of the prilosec and his nystatin.

Ben will also be getting his first heart biopsy within the next month. There is a slight chance he may have to stay overnight, but the cardiologist doesn't think he will. But, he said to bring a bag just in case. We will probably be there a total of 8 hours or so. They just basically want to make sure that he is still doing well. He will probably have biopsies every 6 mths for the next few years and then once a year.

We also had appointments to discuss the girls' PDAs. Klara's is miniscule. There's barely a squirt of blood coming out and a very barely detectable murmur. So slight that they wouldn't have known it was there if they hadn't done an echo to look at her heart because of Ben. Abby's murmur is louder and her heart is slightly enlarged. So, her PDA is bigger and will need to be corrected. So, we will try to schedule her surgery for the same day as Ben if possible. They will do a catheterization going through her groin and plug it up. She will also take about 2 hours for the surgery and then another 6 hours in recovery. She will also need to stay home from school the next day. If it was in her neck, she probably wouldn't. But, since they go through the groin, they want her staying as still as possible so as not to start it bleeding again. Plus, she will probably still be out of it the next day anyways.

So, that is where we are. I'm kind of nervous about the two surgeries. But, well, Ben has been through much worse. Plus, I have total confidence in this cardiologist. If he says it is necessary, I trust him. And I am hoping to schedule it so that he is the one doing it.