At Madison's well check up in April Uncle Rick found a heart murmur that he wanted us to check out. I'm a worrier by nature. Everyday Ethan leaves for work I am convinced that it will be the last time I see him. Its a serious problem that I am trying to overcome. That being said, when Uncle Rick told me that Madison had a heart murmur, I wasn't worried. I felt so calm about everything
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On May 19th Madison and I went to go visit Dr Hoffman, the pediatric cardiologist, and spent three hours doing all sorts of tests and exams.
Madison was a champion. Two nurses came in to get her vitals, one nurse came in to get her heart scanned which required connecting 13 wires across Madison's chest, then the Dr came in to evaluate and listen, and then a 4th nurse came in to take us to a dark room where he did about 45 minutes of ultra sounds on Madison's heart. Madison had to be asleep or still for most of these tests and luckily she was. She was such a good girl.
My favorite part about the whole experience was how every new nurse that came in was like "Oh my! You have the cutest chubbiest baby!" It lightened the mood
After all the exams we learned that Madison did have a heart murmur but the type that she will grow out of when she gets older. 60% of all babies have a heart murmur. Some grow out of them, some never grow out of them but are perfectly fine, some never grow out of them and need some sort of minor assistance later in life, and very few heart murmurs actually need surgery.
The reason Madison had a heart murmur was this: Her heart is so tiny and has to work extra hard to pump the blood through like all baby hearts. As the heart is beating the extra beats in her tiny chest, sometimes extra blood gets pushed in and out. Because there isn't very much room for the extra blood, blood gets sloshed around causing heart murmurs. As babies grow and their chest expands, their hearts slow down and the extra blood stops hitting the walls of their chest. Talk to your doctor, but this was my understanding of Madison's heart murmur.
All in all, it ended up just being a false alarm, but I am so grateful for modern technology that allows us to be cautious instead of sorry. If something was actually wrong, it comforts me to know that there are a lot of people, tools, and procedures that could help.


Yes! So thankful for technology!
ReplyDeleteRight when we found the murmur you posted your post about Elise and it was such a comfort to me. When I read it at the time, I had no idea the diagnosis for Madison and your post made me feel so calm about heart murmurs. Elise's heart issue was much more extreme and yet the fix seemed so simple. It gave me hope that if there was a problem, the fix would be simple. I'm glad Elise is doing well and that they were able to get her little heart taken care of!
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