Test Results

On June 26th, Mateo had a sedated ECHO and a 24-hour holter monitor performed. ECHO is short for Echocardiogram. Its an ultrasound movie of the inside of the heart. It can detect nearly any problem with the functioning of the heart muscle. Mateo has these done regularly at his cardiac appointments. However, he is usually so wiggly, that the technician has a hard time being able to take the time needed to check every part of the heart that the cardiologist needs. So that is why they scheduled a sedated ECHO.

We went in around 8 am that Friday to get started. They gave Mateo a little Valium orally and within 20 minutes, he was sound asleep. He definitely fought to stay awake, but eventually had to give in. The technician came in and took about 45 minutes to get all the pictures that she needed. Its very interesting to be able to see the inside of your own child's heart like that. It looks like an ultrasound that an expectant mother would have, so without the tech pointing everything out, I most definitely wouldn't have known what I was looking at!

Mateo came out of his deep sleep after about an hour and then we took him over to the cardiologist's office to get fitted for his holter monitor. A Holter monitor records every beat of Mateo's heart for 24 hours. Its usually used to make sure that a child isn't having dangerous heart rhythms that need more attention.

Mateo had a bunch of little stickers put onto his chest and abdomen, and then lead wires came off those stickers and attached to a little recorder that looked like a cassette tape player. He actually did really well with it. He didn't pull at the wires and he slept through the night with no problems. I thought it might irritate him because it was a little bulky, but he surprised me. Within that 24 hour window, I had to record what he was doing...whether it was sleeping, crying, eating or playing....so that if there was a change in his heart rhythms, the doctor would know if it was caused by something he was doing or if there was really a problem.

I got the results from those tests earlier this week. It was all good news. Mateo's cardiologist said that everything looked great. He had normal heart function (as normal as a boy with 1/2 a heart could be!). There was no tricuspid regurgitation and no aortic regurgitation. (Sometimes, the valves that control the direction that the blood flows through the heart don't work properly and because of that, some of the blood that should be moving forward, flows back the wrong way...in that case, when its serious enough, those patients end up needing surgeries to replace those valves). She also said his arch looked really good....it wasn't narrowing. Results from the Holter monitor were also good. She said his rhythms were completely normal. That report from the doctor was a huge relief and Mel and I feel so much better about Mateo's heart issues right now. His doctor even made his next scheduled appointment 6 months away instead of 4! To me, that says "things are great, nothing to worry about, see you in 6 months". LOL

We were also given the "okay" to fly to Wisconsin in August. I was a little worried about Mateo flying, but his doctor says he will be fine. So that's the plan! We are excited and looking forward to this trip.