With the state of Wisconsin starting to open back up from the coronavirus quarantine, the clinics of Children’s Hospital have started seeing patients regularly again, if not all at once. Namine has a yearly checkup with her cardiologist, so I suppose our timing was pretty good.
Namine’s appointment was actually twofold. The first was the echocardiogram, which is essentially an ultrasound of her heart. She has always disliked having it done because the technician has to push pretty hard on her chest. While she’ll complain to Jessica and myself, however, she rarely says anything to the tech. She knows its importance, so she endures it.
After the echo, we were guided into a clinic room to await him. Namine was more than happy to speak with the nurse practitioner, filling her in on all that had happened since she was last there (including overturning her bike). After Namine’s cardiologist had a chance to look over the results, he came in to talk to us. The results were good; her heart is squeezing well, and he had no concerns.
Jessica and I were under the impression that Namine should wear a portable heart monitor every twelve months. It has been more than a year since her last one, after all. To our surprise, however, the cardiologist said that since Namine’s heart is doing well, he would only insist on it being done every two years.
The one portion of the visit that we didn’t do is blood work. It’s the final piece of the puzzle, so to speak; combined with the echo results, it will give a clearer picture of how Namine’s heart is doing with her growth and physical activity. We decided not to have it done, though, because she also has to have blood work done for a number of other clinics, some of which must be done while fasting. (I had forgotten about this, so Namine had eaten breakfast that morning.) No worries, the cardiologist said, we could just get it done next time we were at the hospital. And since Namine has a number of upcoming appointments, that will be before we know it.
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