VSD

Well, today was a big day for our boy. And in true Asher fashion, he rocked!

We left the rest of the crew and headed to the eye doctor at 9 AM. As our luck would have it, we waited one and a half hours to be seen!! Asher hung with me through the long wait. When we finally got in, the doctor quickly checked Asher's eye muscles and felt that what we were seeing is indeed just an illusion from the shape of his eyes. But to be sure he needed a full eye exam and that required dilation of Asher's eyes. Of course since his eyes are dark, dark, dark brown this takes a lot of time, and since we had waited so long it was almost time for our next appointment. So we put the drops in, and I was told to come back later in the day.

We ran home, fed Asher and the other kids lunch, traded out babysitters and off we went again. This time to the cardiologist! We didn't have to wait long there thankfully. They did an EKG (normal), the doctor took a history and listened to his heart (heard the murmur), and off we went for an echo to see what is really up. Asher did so well through all this and then laid down on the table and allowed the doctor to scan his heart for 15 minutes without a fuss!!! WHAT A BOY!!!!! The echo showed us our best case scenario. A run of the mill, garden variety, most common of all heart defects, ventricular septal defect (VSD) and a little one at that! It's size is down to 4.4mm from 5mm in China and, of course, his heart is also bigger. That all adds up to it decreasing in size. The doctor said that he does not see this affecting Asher at all and expects it to be closed by the time he is 5. "Take him home and forget he has a heart defect", was his advice. We check back in 6 months for a follow up echo just to be sure.

After this good news, we ran back across town to the eye doctor. Here it became obvious Asher's eyes were still not dilated so in when more drops and we sat down to wait. After about 20 minutes we were finally ready for the exam. Asher was not happy having his eyes forced open but we got through it and again good news. No vision issues. Come back in a few years for routine check or if you have any concerns!

YAY!!! No glasses, patches, or open heart surgery in our rock star's immediate future!! Now we can just focus on his hands and getting him caught up with therapy.

Here are a few picture of the little guy and his siblings.