Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Broken Hearts

Alright, the title may be a little melodramatic, but I was very shocked at Rorysaurus and Little Monkey's checkup the other week.

In case you didn't know, or remember, Little Monkey has a heart defect (he did have two, but one went away all on its own). Instead of looking like this:

Little Monkey's Aortic Valve looks like this:

It's a minor defect as far as heart defects go, and while it probably will require surgery, it shouldn't be an issue until he's in his forties.

Well, when we went to the kids' appointment, my WONDERFUL pediatrician checked Rorysaurus' ears and heart, then checked Little Monkey's head, then listened to Rorysaurus' heart, then checked her reflexes, then had Rorysaurus lay down so she could hear her heart... You see where this is going, right? So, I asked what was up, and (after getting the opinion of the other doc in the office) she told me Rorysaurus has a benign systolic heart murmur, known as a Still's Murmur. Not a real problem, just something we need to be aware of for dental surgery because of an elevated risk of infective endocarditis (where bacteria enters the bloodstream through dental procedure and infects and kills a heart valve. It actually happened to Dh's cousin's wife (hereby dubbed Music Mama).

By the way, if you have any extra prayers to spare, please keep Music Mama in your prayers. She had a valve replaced a few years ago due to the endocarditis, but it is failing now, and she's in her sixth month of pregnancy. Her docs figure it will be between 3 days post-partum and a few years before the valve needs replacing, but if y'all want to pray the need is delayed as long as possible, that would be great.

1 comment:

Elena said...

Thanks, square peg! I can use all the prayers I can get! I wish someone had diagnosed my heart murmur (IF I had one) before that fateful tooth cleaning. You should give those kids antibiotics if you even walk past a dentist office!!
-Music Mama