Cardiac Update

Yesterday Ella had her one year check up with her cardiologist, Dr. Peiris. They assumed when she was born that she had a VSD, or ventricular septal defect, a type of congenital heart defect in which there is an abnormal opening in the dividing wall between the main pumping chambers (or ventricles) of the heart. VSD's are the most common type of heart defect in newborns. However, since she was experiencing no symptoms and was growing fine Dr. Peiris said it will most likely close up by one year and he wanted to see her back then to check it and go from there.

We went in at 11:00 and he first performed an EKG. On the EKG he saw some slight discrepancies so he listened to her and didn't hear the murmur but wanted to see what was causing the blip on the EKG. So, he sent us over to the hospital to do an Echo cardiogram, basically a sonogram of the heart. No one had told us at this point that the Echo would take about 45-60 minutes. Yeah right- you get your 13 month old to lay still for that long. Did I mention she hadn't had anything to eat? Poor thing! Well, Ella did FANTASTIC! She layed there still the whole time and even fell asleep for a while.

So after that was over we talked with Dr. Peiris for a while and he noted that all of her valves had minor leaks including her Aorta (the main artery to the heart.) There was no sign of a VSD. So, although not great news, for now Ella is doing really well and he told us not to change anything about her lifestyle for the time being. This is something that can get better with age, stay the same, or get worse. All we can basically do is watch it and if it does get worse do something about it such as have surgery to replace the valve.

Yesterday was quite a LONG (we finally got to leave the clinic at 3:00) and emotional day since this is not at ALL what I expected. Please keep Ella in your prayers that her heart will heal on it's own and she can continue to be a healthy and happy little girl.

Little Pumpkin

Here's Ella at her first pumpkin patch and she loved it! I love the fall and pumpkins just add to the fun.