The Cardiologist Appointment

Ainsley had her appointment with the cardiologist on Thursday. It was a long visit as they did 2 time consuming tests to ensure that her heart is fine. Which it is! Her murmur is one that is considered an Innocent murmur. I scanned the paperwork that the doctor gave me on this and have included it here for anyone that is interested.......just click on the picture to the right and it will enlarge.

Basically what it means is that she is fine and will have no physical limitations, nor will she need to even take antibiotics before having dental work done!

She was a real trooper during the appointment. She was SO brave. I would have thought that the EKG and the echo cardiogram would have been scary for her since she is so little and doesn't understand. But I told her that the nice lady wanted to put stickers on her chest, tummy and legs so that we could see a picture of how her heart was working. Know what she did? She raised her dress up! She laid there on the table and just watched with such curiosity. Her favorite part was pulling the stickers off at the end and sticking them to the floor and saying, "Uh oh!"

For the echo, she was a little bit more timid. But I think it was because she had to strip down to her diaper and lay on this wedge pillow in a dark room. I was able to sit on the table with her, which helped a lot. I told her that the lady was going to use her wand to show us a picture of her heart on the TV, that it would be like magic. It was kind of cool. We could see the valves of her heart opening and closing, just like they are supposed to. We saw all four chambers of her heart. We even got to see the blood flow through her heart. Everything was exactly like it should be. Absolutely no structural defects to be found!

In other news, Ainsley is doing great with taking her iron drops and vitamin drops every day. Her appetite is back with a vengeance. She is eating like crazy! her milk intake, while not cut off completely, is down to 10 ounces or less a day. I give her 3 oz in a 10 oz bottle and fill the rest up with water, first thing in the morning. Each bottle after that is refilled with water until she catches on that it is not milk. Then I will put a splash of milk in to color the water. It's sneaky, but it works. The bottle that she gets at bedtime is half milk and half water.

All in all, I am very pleased with how her treatments for her anemia are going. It has not been nearly as difficult to get her to take the drops as I thought it would be. She actually takes them without fighting. She makes a horrible face, but she takes them.