After a pretty long sabbatical from writing my blog, I've decided.... it's time to come back. I would like to thank all of you for reading and encouraging me all along the way. "What's new with the Thorpe's" is and was so very therapeutic to write. We have been through several things since the last time I blogged. I went back to school (for two weeks), we went on a family vacation, Ruthie had her 6 month check up in Cincinnati, and I saved her life with the Heimlich maneuver.... wow! we've done a lot!
We'll start with Ruthie's check-up. Ruthie visited her cardiologist. She had an echo (ultrasound of the heart) done. She had to be sedated for this. It wasn't a very strong sedative. Just enough to make her sleepy for the test. She did amazing! She slept through the whole thing! AND when she woke up... SHE WAS HILARIOUS! I hated laughing at her but....who am I kidding....we cracked up! I won't show you any of the pictures or videos we took of her. We'll save those for her 16th birthday party. After a long wait, we got the results of her echo. Her pulmonary hypertension (pressure in the blood vessels heading from her heart to her lungs) is GONE! We were given the okay to wean her off her final medication. She was not as excited as mommy and daddy were! We will return to the cardiologist in 3 months just to double check that it's not coming back.
We also had an x-ray done. Her sweet, wonderful, genius surgeon was super busy saving other babies so we didn't get to see him. But we had the x-ray and left it for him to review. I got a call from him this week letting me know that he didn't see anything to worry about on the x-ray. Everything looked great. There were some weird things on the x-ray that would alarm someone else but he said that it was exactly what he was expecting. Her lungs don't seem to be inflating completely but....duh.... she only has 1 lobe (there's supposed to be 3) on the right side. Of course, it's not going to fill the chest cavity yet. I don't know about you but if you've met my little miracle, she looks like she's doing great. She still gets out of breath pretty easily and i don't really let her cry for extended amounts of time. I don't want her to wear herself out. But other than that, she's a-o-k!
So, on to the life saving mommy! I have started giving Ruthie little puffs and yogurt melts. She loves them and didn't choke for weeks. Then, one day, whilst cooking bacon, i looked over at Ruthie in her high chair and low and behold.... She was choking. I pat her back trying to get her to spit it out. nothing. Beginning to turn grayish blue around her mouth. I, then, remembered my newborn emergency training from the hospital (thank you nurse erin!!). I snatched her out of the high chair, held her head down on her belly, and patted her back a couple good pats. She threw up right away. I held her for a minute. Set her in her bouncy seat, gave her a drink of juice and she was fine. So was I. When i finished the bacon, I called Jimmy to let him know I would be running late because of Ruthie's choking.... I lost it! I stated crying in retelling him the story. It didn't occur to me to be scared until that moment. Thank you Lord for keeping my cool for me.
Overall, we're doing good. No complaints. Things here are relatively quiet. Praying for our friends.... praying for a couple waiting on adoption, two waiting on sons to arrive, and another who lost a son.
