Heart Murmur

We got to the doctors to check in and I noticed that they have separate well child and sick child waiting areas, I love that! Our pediatrician does not and I hate letting Brityn play with the toys for fear of sick kid germs!

Once we got called back a very nice nurse asked a few questions about her history and told us that they had all sorts of tricks and treats to get little ones to cooperate, because in their experience babies this age are notoriously difficult! Of course I'm thinking "Oh, great! You haven't seen anything yet, Brityn sit still long enough for them to get a good reading off this, YEAH RIGHT!" She then brings in the ECG machine in and some little stickers that they have to stick all over her body and then hook the electrodes up to (I think that is what these are called? I'm medical terminology retarded). The stickers have little animals on them so she was fascinated by that and probably the fact that some strange lady was putting stickers all over her arms, legs, and chest. I was pretty sure she would start pulling them off immediately but she didn't. She needed to be very still and at one point she started fidgeting a little so the nurse had me blow some bubbles to distract her. When the ECG was done she pulled off all the "stickers" and stuck them on her tennis shoes.

Then the doctor came in and asked more questions and told us the ECG looked fine. He then listened to her heart for a long time. Having her change positions a couple times. Supposedly when heart murmurs are innocent they go away when you lie down or recline, hers doesn't. After he was done listening he said because her murmur didn't go away when she reclined that he would like to go ahead and do the ultrasound. Then he explained to us that if it was in fact an innocent heart murmur they don't do anything about them and it's nothing to worry about however, if it was a... and I forget the words here... they would do surgery at some point but it would not be open heart, just through a catheter. GULP! The thought of her needing to have surgery never even crossed my mind!!!

Doctor takes us to another room for the ultrasound, introduces us to the tech and says he'll be back when she is done. Brent laid her down on the table and the tech turned off the lights. Next to the ultrasound machine is a small TV with a Baby Einstein video ready to go. So, far Brityn has been very good, I'm doubting our luck will continue, she won't sit still to watch TV at home let alone lay down to do it. But she notices the TV and just lays there and stares while the tech gets more stickers (without animals) and electrodes hooked up to her. The DVD isn't even playing at this point mind you she is just watching the menu screen. Finally everything is set up and the tech finally decides to push play. I'm waiting for Brityn to jump and run at any moment but she doesn't, she laid there for about 45 minutes while the tech took more than 135 pictures of her heart. At one point the nurse even came into the room to offer help... thinking we should be having trouble keeping Brityn relaxed. She was an absolute angel through the whole thing, definitely not my child! I'm pretty sure she was abducted by aliens for those couple hours! ;) This whole time part of me wanted to ask if she was seeing anything worrisome but the other part of me just wanted to live in ignorant bliss for a few more minutes. I kept thinking that she was taking too many pictures for everything to be okay, but I kept my mouth shut.

When she was finally done she told us we could get Brityn dressed and she would go get the doctor. We must have waited 20-30 minutes before he finally came in with the tech and they went to the machine and began talking in code. You know how when people are having a conversation around you and they don't want you to know what they are talking about they say things like "I saw the.... and I thought maybe you should look at it to be sure." and "yeah, see where the..... yeah, that is unusual." I was hearing a lot of that and I was beginning to get worried. Between the guarded conversation and they crazy amount of time she spent saving images I was sure something was wrong. I tried to ignore the whole thing and just played with Brityn while they talked. Finally they finished up and the doctor told us that the heart murmur was innocent... but.... she does have some strange thing that looks like a wrinkle. He told us that they have been seeing this more and more frequently on babies and toddlers lately, probably because the equipment they use is so much more advanced than it used to be and they are able to see so much more. But basically he thinks it's nothing. He is going to send the images to his colleagues at Seattle's Children's Hospital just to get their opinion and he wants to do a follow up ultrasound in six months just to make sure it hasn't changed. This "wrinkle" has nothing to do with the murmur, by the way. And I'm pretty sure it is absolutely nothing :)

Brityn on the ride home

Stay tuned for a story about two overprotective parents and some pictures of my gutted bathroom!