Yesterday was Landon's yearly heart check up. I did pretty good this year and didn't get real nervous or anxious about it until the day before. He had an EKG first. Still ticklish as ever.
Then he had an echocardiogram. Its an ultrasound of his heart. It takes about an hour because they do lots of measurements and views. They have a little tv and dvd player in the room so he picked out Finding Nemo to watch. The tech gave him a snack and a warm blanket.
After the echo we met with his pediatric cardiologist, Dr Finta.
Dr Finta explained that Landon's pulmonary valve continues to decline though not quite as badly as it did last year. She also said that his right atrial (upper) heart chamber is more enlarged than it was for his last echo. She said some of that is just regular growth. She is going to take a closer look and compare his echo pictures side by side. If the difference looks significant Landon will need to have an MRI to check the volumes and outflow from that chamber. The MRI needs to be very precise and Landon needs to be very still for it. Its also an hour and a half long so they will put Landon to sleep with anesthesia if he has to have it. We talked a little about how long she thought it might be until he needs the valve replaced. When he first had his repair they were hoping to wait until he was closer to adult age, if he needed it at all. She said it will for sure be before he's a teenager. Probably even before he's 10. For now we just continue to keep a close eye on it with yearly echos and being aware of any declines in stamina or endurance.
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