Bless your heart!

A few weeks ago while at a random pediatrician visit, Isabelle and I were told that she had a heart murmur and needed to be seen by a cardiologist. Of course, I was caught off guard by this discovery and was upset by the news. We were referred to The Children's Heart Network of San Antonio and today was her exam. The nurse told me beforehand that they would most likely just do an EKG since she is so tiny, unless they heard something that worried them...in that case, they would need to do an echo cardiogram. Isabelle's blood pressure was registering high but the poor baby was scared to death of all of the stickers and clips connected to a machine covering her little body. When the doctor turned to us and said "I think I want to take some pictures of her heart"... my heart skipped a beat!

Isabelle's initial tears wore her out and luckily she fell asleep on the doctor's table which made the echo easy. The doctor was able to spend a half hour or more looking at every chamber of her heart and pointing out what everything was to Ben and I. He decided that she has a small hole in her heart, and has since birth. The bigger the hole, the louder the murmur, so we are fortunate that it is just now deciding to make itself known. It is not located where the doctor thought it would be, by listening to the sounds, and he concluded that it must be located in the very bottom of the lower chambers which is an extremely hard area to get a good look at from the outside world.

Belle's heart looks strong and she is growing just like she should, so Doctor Rogers thinks there is a good chance the hole will close on its own over the next few years. She has no diet or activity restrictions, thank goodness, and his only request is to bring her back again for another look in 2009. Ben and I both really appreciated Doctor Rogers and we are continually grateful for the good medical experiences we have had. When she was covered in the jelly from the echo, he made a joke about her being a "Jelly Belly." He had no idea how appropriate this nickname was!

When we arrived home, Belle told us "my heart is all better" and then asked to practice drawing smiley faces! She likes me to draw one for her to copy and then she tries to draw several. We are hopeful this is her last "specialist" visit for quite a while as she has had more than her share of weird procedures done in her 2 young years of life. She is such a trooper!