HAPPIEST BABY ON THE BLOCK

I am thrilled to say that the hospital visit yesterday went as well as we could've hoped. They did all of the tests on Liam and determined that his lungs look great and that his heart pressure is lower than they thought, so his pulmonary hypertension can be classified as "mild". He is starting medicine and can begin to wean off O2 when he's awake. He will likely be on O2 at least at night through next winter and will be on the 3x day meds for a few years, but similar to asthma, they are optimistic that he will fully outgrow this in a year or two. Yeah!
The dreaded hospital visit had it moments-- particularly the part where we had to keep him lying flat/still for 4 hours after his procedures (he's is freakishly strong and wiggly) but all the doctors were great and we were home in the afternoon instead of spending the night, as we had anticipated. Surprisingly, the medicine he will be on is Viagra. I honestly thought they were kidding, but no. It's called something else (you'd hate to give a 1-year old a bad reputation) but that's what he'll be taking-- it's a "dilator" they tell me. Who knew. I'm just glad we're done with this step and have a plan forward.

Jim and I had a kid-free stay up in the mountains last weekend, thanks to Mop, T, and Annie. We also got to go on a hot air balloon ride, thanks to the Diana Price-Fish Foundation-- kind of a "make a wish" foundation for adults, with the goal of "helping adult cancer patients enjoy life." Well, it worked. We got to go 2000 feet up and see the Fraser valley from an entirely new perspective (talk about getting above it all) and down low enough to pick a pinecone from the top of a tree. I was tickled when the pilot blew bubbles over the side. Very cool.
A week from tomorrow is BBG (boobs-be-gone) day. I had both my pre-ops (masectomy & reconstruction) this past week, and for a change, didn't have any unpleasant surprises. They did take pictures though... although this time it was the dr. with a little digital instead of a blue photo room with lights and X-marks-the-spot (proving that I chose the right dr.). "I'm sorry we have to do this," the doctor said, "but later on you will like to see how far you've come."
Indeed.