Our morning at Pediatric Cardiology

Thomas had his appointment with the cardiologist this morning to look at his heart and see what was up with the murmur. Basically, she said he's fine; we just wait until he's two, look at it again, and see if anything needs to be done at that point. I'll describe it in more detail later on, there's a picture to go with it. I took full advantage of our recently purchased digital camera, and took some fun pics while we were there.

Here is Thomas on the exam table. This is after his echo cardiogram (ultrasound of the heart).

The ultrasound didn't dampen his spirits!

Zaylee found the various cupboards to be interesting, and a lot more fun than sitting still.

There were chalkboards in the waiting room, perfect for a budding little artist who loves to color.

Thomas had his own toys, but that didn't deter him from wanting to play with Zaylee's puzzle. We had to give him his own.

Here's Thomas's puzzle, before he got pieces strewn all over the room. At one point he lunged forward and face-planted onto a couple pieces, cutting his cheek and chin. Oops!

Zaylee was surprisingly good at putting the puzzle pieces in the right places. She would look at the piece carefully, then examine the board until she found the right spot. She was very proud of herself.

This is the little picture the cardiologist drew for us, to illustrate what's going on with Thomas's heart. A heart murmur is just a sound - it's the sound the blood makes as it rushes in and out of the heart. Thomas's heart has a slightly different sound than normal because of what is called an atrial shunt. It's that little dot between the right and left atria with the arrow through it. Infants are born with a small opening there that allows some of the blood to go back to the lungs instead of to the body, because in the womb it just went back to the placenta. The opening (shunt) closes up usually by the time a child is two. Normally, this opening is only 1-2 mm at birth, and starts getting smaller pretty much right away. Thomas's, at seven months, is 3 mm. So basically his shunt is larger than normal, letting more blood through than in most babies. At this point, the game plan is basically to wait and see if it will close up on its own. If, when we check it again at 2 years, it hasn't closed up, then action will probably need to be taken to fix it.

Anyway, he's healthy, growing and developing normally, so the cardiologist said not to do anything differently, just because he has a heart murmur. Just treat him normal. It's nice to know what's going on, and that it's not really anything to worry about.