Echocardiogram #14

Clare had her sedated echo this morning. Shawn arrived home after midnight last night from his business trip in Houston, and the three of us trooped out of our house in the rain at the crack of dawn this morning to the clinic. Erin came and stayed with Jamie, so thankfully they were still sleeping peacefully when we left this morning.

Clare, as usual, was a trooper. Since we were at the clinic by 6:30am, she was still groggy from being woken up and had not realized that she missed her breakfast, which was a blessing. So she wasn't too fussy during the pre-echo procedures, and she willingly let the anesthesiologist take her from us and walk away with her. After the echo, her cardiologist came out to talk to us while Clare was waking up from the anesthesia. Clare's heart is still fairly unchanged since her last echo 5 months ago. Yippee! Her vessels have not grown too much, but that is not a surprise since Clare herself has not grown too much. Her blood pressures are higher, even being sedated, so the cardiologist is doubling her Propranolol dose (blood pressure meds). That was kind of a bummer since we've been hopeful Clare could eventually be weaned off her Propranolol. However, she has not had a dose increase since she first started on it post-surgery a year ago, so an increase in dose should not be a real surprise, it's just in the wrong direction we had hoped for! The portion of her aorta that was surgically repaired still looks fantastic and wide open. Clare does have a little more leaking in her aortic valve, but again, it's something she's had all along and they are keeping an eye on it. The biggest change was that Clare's right-sided pressures have gone up from a 45 gradient last echo to 55-60 this echo. The cardiologist wants to see Clare for another sedated echo around her 2nd birthday. At that time, if Clare's right-sided pressures have continued to increase like they did this time, then she is most likely headed back for another cath to relieve some of that pressure. We are going to have a follow-up next week for an EKG to be sure the conduction system in Clare's heart is tolerating her Propranolol increase.

We are relieved to have another echo behind us! I consider the news good because the rapid narrowing in Clare's vessels have slowed down considerably from last year. We get to have another 4-5 months between echos, and if there is a cath in Clare's future, it most likely won't be until after her second birthday. All good stuff!