Last month Avery had her NICU follow up appointment. The Pediatrician recommended we have her see a Cardiologist to check her heart murmur. Her appointment was this past Thursday. I was expecting a quick appointment (maybe thirty minutes to an hour), but we ended up being there over three hours. Needless to say it was a long day! Being stuck with three and five year olds in a room for that long isn't fun at all. I had planned on having time to go back home and feed the kids lunch before taking them to school. The appointment went through lunch time, I had to reschedule my hair appointment and the kids were an hour late for school. OK, enough complaining-on to the appointment. After we got signed in and I filled out some paperwork Avery had an EKG...
After the EKG Dr. Judd's assistant of the day came in and did an exam and listened to her heart very thoroughly in several places. Then Dr. Judd came in and reevaluated her. They both heard a pretty significant heart murmur. Avery had a
PDA shortly after she was born while she was in the NICU. It was successfully closed with
Indometacin. According to Dr. Judd, PDA's reopen 30% of the time. They were pretty sure this was the case with Avery. The Dr. decided to have Avery get a
Echocardiography to determine the size of the PDA and more importantly get a better picture of, and accurate measurements of her heart to make sure her heart hadn't enlarged as a result. If it had enlarged she would need surgery to close the PDA because overtime the heart would be working too hard and keep enlarging and eventually give out. The ultrasound was over an hour long but Avery was a trooper...
When all the testing was complete the Dr. informed us that the PDA was really small and her heart wasn't enlarged at all. Everything was functioning perfectly and that she wouldn't need surgery. It was a huge relief! She recommended we just follow up and have her checked every year... that I can handle!
Note: Her PDA was originally found when she had her first Echocardiography in the NICU on 4/18/07 when she was 8 days old.
Thursday 3/24/11
On Friday (the following day) Maddy had a Dr.'s appointment. Tuesday evening he and Avery were playing in Avery's room and Maddy came out crying saying he swallowed a penny. We did our research online but called the Dr. the following morning to get his advice. We were told if it "hadn't passed in 48 hours to have him seen so they can make sure there wasn't any kind of blockage." We never "found" the penny so we were back at the Dr.'s office (we had been there a couple weeks earlier with him due to stomach problems)...
They did an exam and were pretty sure he is fine. We were told we could get an x-ray if we wanted to but we opted to just watch him and make sure everything stays normal in the up coming days.
Later that day Steve and I had Dentist appointments. The kids had Dentist appointments the week before. So in a 10 day period we all four had Dentist appointments and both Maddox and Avery had Dr. appointments. I think we've had our share for awhile (hopefully!)
Friday 3/25/11
