GREAT news!

Ahem.

Miss Alivia has an announcement she'd like to share with you.....

Her heart has improved some! In fact, it's pumping nearly twice as effectively as it was every other time her physicians looked at it! Praise God!!

We've never been guaranteed that we'd see any improvement in Alivia's heart. In fact, we had the impression we'd be lucky if things simply stayed the same. So today, going into the echocardiogram, we - of course - were hoping to hear the best news possible, but we were prepared to hear what we always hear: "Things look the same."

But instead, her cardiologist came in, saying, "I have very, very good news!" He explained that, normally, Alivia's heart pumps about 16 to 18 percentage points lower than what's considered normal. Today, her heart was pumping "only" 7 points lower! He also mentioned something else had improved a little - a murmur of some kind, perhaps (I don't recall - my ears quit working after the initial good news!). While her left ventricle is still enlarged, which is causing the inefficient pump, her heart is somehow compensating and beating stronger than it has in a long, long time.

We've tried to stay confident that we'd hear, someday, that her heart was improving, and we were warned just in December that it was a bit too early to expect that, so to hear those words today was an honest-to-God dream come true. One more prayer answered in this long, long journey. May God continue to bless and strengthen our little girl as we push forward.

Tyler was so thrilled to hear his sister's heart was looking better that he gave me a big hug. :-) Just what I needed! We are celebrating tonight - chocolate cupcakes!

YAY!