All the better to bite you with.....

Yay!! Luke has officially finished Phase I of his orthodontics!!! He went from this

to this!!

It's been 2 1/2 years consisting of an expander, four teeth pulled, braces on, braces added, braces off, braces on, I don't remember how many times or the order. The bottom ones have been off for a while. They took the top ones off while they waited for the permanent teeth to come in, and then put the top ones back on. He now has a retainer and will continue wearing a chin cup until the next phase, which will probably be in several years considering how slowly his teeth come out!! His retainer is camoflauge!! He got to pick what color he wanted and if it was solid color, he could pick a design to go on it!! The day he got his braces off, they gave him a bag full of goodies: gum, microwave popcorn, chewy candy, pretzels, all stuff he's not supposed to eat with braces!!

P.S. My pictures are horrible. I'm going to have to get Leigh to help me because it will not upload my pictures properly! :( I don't know how to fix it. :P

P.S.S. The pictures got fixed. :)

Surgery Consultation

We were finally able to have a consultation with Dr. Bove, one of the top Doctors in the US that perform the Double Switch surgery! Dr. Bove was there along with Dr. Scholl, the surgeon that did Susannah's first surgery, and then another cardiologist, Dr. Bibevski. When Susannah has her surgery they will all three be doing it together. Dr. Bove has done over 140 Double Switches, and Dr. Scholl (as of last January) had only done 3. In the world of Double Switch surgeries, there are four doctors, that I have been able to find, that have done a significant number of these surgeries. The top two are Del Nido in Boston and Bove in Michigan. I cannot explain how thrilled I was to hear that Dr. Bove would be collaborating with Joe DiMaggio!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1dsI1t5Xek&feature=player_embedded 


Our visit went well. Dr. Bove gave us more information about Susannah's heart that we hadn't been told before. The more of these patients he sees, the more convinced he is that the Double Switch is the thing to do, and sooner rather than later. With Susannah already having a significant tricuspid regurgitation (a sign of heart failure), her heart would inevitably go into complete heart failure and at that point she would require a heart transplant, which has an entirely new set of problems. The only other option is to do this double switch. From the research we've done and questions we've asked, we're convinced that this is a surgery that Susannah needs to have done, and Dr. Bove was our first pick of surgeons to perform it.
Apparently, the PA band should not be left on indefinitely or too long, because it can cause the valve before it to become malformed and not function properly. He feels her surgery should be done within the next 3-6 months. The numbers on the ECHO look good enough to go ahead with the Double Switch, but they will do a cardiac cath to get a more accurate reading of the pressures, and such, before they go ahead with the Double Switch. If the numbers are high, then we need to do the surgery soon, if they're just right, we can play around with a few months, and if they're low, then they'll do surgery to tighten the PA band.
When they do the Double Switch, they'll go ahead and put in her pacemaker. They usually leave the chest open for a couple days for swelling, drainage, etc., and depending on how well they can get the leads on they'll either put it on after they finish the DS, or when they go in to close the chest. I think that's all for now. My notes are in the bedroom where Leigh's sleeping, so I'm going to wait to double check.


So, our next step is the cardiac cath, which is supposed to be an outpatient procedure, possibly an overnight stay. They're going to let the cardiologist know what we discussed and then somewhere after that the hospital will call me to make an appointment. I don't know if that will be after our next cardiologist appointment or between now and then. Her next appointment is the middle of Feb., so I guess we'll just wait and see, and if I get antsy I'll go ahead and call! :)

Happenings around the Riffel Household

Well, my last post was in August, and we've been quite busy since then!
Susannah has done well with the DuoCal, which is carbs and fats in a powder that we mix with her formula. She has been gaining on a curve since we started that. She went back to the GI dr. in October and he put her on a liquid fat called Liquigen. So we added that as well. She seems to be gaining better and maybe even a tad more than the curve. He released us for 4-6 months. Right now we have an appointment in March, but if she's gained well at our cardiologist visit in Feb, I'm going to move it. Since her weight gain has improved, the Cardiologist said, in November, that we didn't have to go back for THREE months! This will be the longest we have ever gone between cardiologist appointments. Even before she was born, we were at the cardiologist at least every month, if not twice a month! While we were on Christmas vacation, I received a phone call I was waiting on, to consult with Dr. Bove, the heart surgeon from Michigan. On Jan 7, we meet with Dr. Bove and Dr. Scholl, the Dr. who did Susannah's first surgery. Hopefully, we will be able to get a more likely timetable, of when her big surgery will happen.




September brought Emily's and Josiah's birthdays. Aunt Deborah and her friend Miss Amy were able to come down and help celebrate a few days early. October was busy with school and getting things lined up for November and December. The beginning of Nov. the kids and I went to Dothan for the Peanut Festival. We packed in a bit more in this trip than we usually do. We went to the Army Aviation Museum in Ft. Rucker and then we took the kids to the Marianna Caverns. It was fun and I think the kids enjoyed it. Of course, we also went to Luke's "Birthday Parade." The peanut parade always lands around Luke's birthday, and when he was little, he truly thought it was for his birthday! :) We also celebrated Luke's birthday while we were there. We celebrated Thanksgiving at the church with our church family. There were a little over 30 that showed up and a few came that wouldn't usually go to church. A week after Thanksgiving, Leigh and I drove to Dothan, dropped the kids off, and went up to Tennessee to the Marriage and Family Conference at the Bill Rice Ranch. Celebrated Timothy's birthday Saturday, before coming home on Sunday. We then went back to Dothan for Christmas two weeks later!! Our plan was to stay in Dothan a few days and then go to Atlanta and spend a couple days there. Well, all of the kids got sick that week at different times, so the plans changed to where Leigh, Luke, and Emily went up and spent the night and afternoon and came back to Dothan before we headed home. Overall we had a lovely time and made some entertaining memories!