Cardiology Appointment

First of all, I know this background is pretty bright but I let Arianna pick it out. This is her blog so I wanted her to have on here what she wanted. I'll probably have to change it soon cause the hot pink is going to kill my eyes. LOL!

For not being a morning person I sure did have a good morning. I was up at 5:45am, got a little work done, got showered and ready then woke Arianna up around 7:30 to get ready for her cardiology appointment.

I was a little picture happy today so you get lots of pictures in this post. :)

(Unfortunately you will see her silly forced smile in all these pictures...what a nut)

Arianna always has to check out the fish before we go back into the cardiology clinic.

Waiting for our doctor to come in and yes I lysoled every toy before she played with them.

I'm really wanting to get pictures with all the people that have taken care of Arianna. I was sad to see our favorite nurse Gab was no longer at the clinic.

This is Lori the social worker. Arianna has always loved this lady. She comes into every appointment to say hi.

Dr. Klewer taking a listen to Ari's heart.

She even lifts her shirt for him. He thought that was too cute!


Finally...a picture with the best cardiologist ever!



On exam she sounded good but he wanted to get a quick pep at her heart so we had a very quick echo done. As you can see she cried through the entire thing. We'll have to start working on practice echos at home.

So her right ventricle only went up to 22 mm dilated, which is only a 1 cm increase. YAY! She has the tricuspid regurgitation still and because of that they are able to estimate the right ventricle pressures to be around 28 mmHg, which is pretty good. I asked what the magic number would be as far as pressures go till we would know she needed surgery. He said the echo cannot give us exact right ventricle pressures so we would have to do a cardiac MRI to know that....but not for a LONG time! Before he has mentioned possibly doing that around 7-8 years old. He said if Arianna gets to the age where she can sit still for 1-1/2 hours in a MRI machine we could do that but he's thinking more around 9 years old. Of course that is if she contines to do well and no significant changes happen before that time. So we PRAY nothing changes.

I did ask about EKG's and he said he normally does check ups every 6 months and alternates between "checking the plumbing and checking the electrical system." Love how simply he puts that. So next time she will have an EKG done to see how she is doing there. Because she had the VSD patched she has what's called, right bundle branch block. This can cause arrythmia problems as she gets older. I've known of a 19 year old boy with TOF who died because he had arrythmias that were not detected. This is why it's so critical for people born with CHDs to continue cardiology followup once they get out of pediatric care.

On a side note, I mentioned to him about the pulmonary edema the pulmonologist said she had. Well....our cardiologist thinks that is incorrect. He said he has reviewed Arianna's x-rays himself and does not believe that is the case. I told him how the pulmonologist is always asking when the next heart surgery is scheduled and he didn't seem to like that very well. So...what am I to do now? Should I call the pulmonologist and tell him what our cardiologist said??? I'll have to do some thinking about this but when it comes to those lungs I believe they will heal over time. I have prayed and prayed and prayed over this and I will not longer let it worry me anymore. She is a blessed child of God and I will not allow myself to get caught up in all this anymore. We will continue to stay secluded at home for the rest of the winter and when summer comes....WATCH OUT WORLD HERE WE COME!!!

So after our appointment we went outside to enjoy the nice patio for a few minutes. Here is a picture of Arianna loving on her Grams. I just LOVE this picture and she sure LOVES her Grams!

Here she is giving her silly smile again.

Then on the way home we stopped at Burger King to get some lunch. I know not very healthy but she loves their french fries. These are the cutest little (well not so little) glasses that came in her kids meal.

So I sit here at home feeling extremely blessed. I have the most precious child that is happy and healthy....what else could I ask for. :)