Monday, June 11, 2012

Cardiology Checkup

Caleb had his checkup with the cardiologist today. He did pretty well considering he is not a fan of going to the doctor after all of his RSV vaccines this winter. He cried in the elevator, but had a ball running around the waiting room.

His EKG looked normal for him and his heart sounds good. The cardiologist wasn't terribly excited about his weight (a smidge over 21 pounds), but he said that he was ok with it if Caleb's pediatrician was. The pediatrician is ok with it because is growing right along the slightly less than 1 percentile curve. He isn't catching up any, but he isn't losing ground. Caleb eats very well, but seems to burn off everything he eats. He doesn't really ever sit still. He runs and then sleeps.

Caleb's oxygen saturations were not as good as they have been. In December, he was at 90% or so. Today, he was in the upper 70's. The cardiologist said that some kids do drop as they get more active and Caleb is not at a level that is dangerous for him. So for now, his body is not telling us the surgery has to be sooner rather than later. The timing of the surgery is still "elective" and we are thinking it will probably happen next spring. We want to miss the major winter bugs but give him time to recover so he can enjoy the summer. I do find calling open heart surgery "elective" a bit ironic!

Caleb will have a sedated echocardiogram (detailed ultrasound of the heart) sometime this summer. He has not had an echo since he was discharged from his last surgery in January 2011. While we are not keen on sedating him again, Caleb's fear of doctors and his active nature would probably result in 45 minutes of screaming - something none of us want to experience!

Overall, the appointment went well and hopefully the echo will show that everything is working the way it is supposed to be.