Braythanine: Cardiologist Appointment 3/3/11

One of the reasons I wanted to actively post on a Blog is to keep family and friends updated on our life. A huge part of our life are the many trips to the doctors appointments. Today, we had our second appointment to see the Cardiologist. Our first was in September. Brayden was to see her to get a baseline to monitor him in the future. We found out he has SVT (Supraventricular Tachycardia). Basically he has an extra pathway in his heart. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supraventricular_tachycardia ) From time to time, his heart will start to beat quickly and he will feel it as if his heart is beating out of his chest. The doctor assured us that he will be able to tell us and that it is very manageable! She sent us on our way, but Brayden had to wear a heart monitor for 24 hours to see if he had any of these episodes. The poor thing was extremely upset about it so we let him "skip" school which he thought was awesome!

Today was our followup appointment. The doctor requested that we bring Brayden in an hour early so she could work his heart up on the treadmill. I was very nervous about this, but Brayden did an AWESOME job! They hooked a bunch of wires up to his chest and had him walk on the treadmill. They also monitored his blood pressure through out this! The speed and incline was increased and by the end he was running up a hill! There was a nurse standing behind him so if he fell she could catch him. There was also one standing next to him and a doctor was monitoring his heart on the screen! Brayden was able to watch tv, all that was on that he would watch was Sponge Bob (and most of you know how I feel about Sponge Bob!). He was totally engrossed in it and it kept his mind off of what he was doing so that was all that mattered!

After they let him stop, they had him sit and waited for everything to register. The doctor (not our doctor, but the Chief) was VERY impressed by what the reports showed as well as how well Brayden did! She said this basically told us we don't have anything to worry about! She also told us that Brayden was the youngest patient that they had walk on the treadmill for the test! I was so proud of him!

We met with our doctor after the test and she was very pleased! I had to have her explain it...I have never been good at science! The purpose of the test was to get his heart rate up to see if that extra pathway was used. Well, it wasn't. It does not mean he doesn't have SVT. It just means that it isn't something we have to worry a great deal over. His heart rate could speed up at any moment. We have some tricks to slow it down. We can a) pick him up and hold him upside down (like that is easy to do with a 7 year old! lol!) OR b) have him squat down like he is going to the bathroom and push (I was thinking okaaaaaay!) OR c) walk up and shock him (so he doesn't realize we are coming) with a cold bag of peas or what not and hold it for 20 seconds making sure we are getting in his eye area. So, now everyone reading this knows what to do! lol!

I felt a huge rush of relief when the Chief was repeatedly saying over and over how this is AWESOME news and this is great for us. It is a good thing, no doubt but, after all of the anticipation and the emotions we feel when going to these appointments, it is a huge physical strain! I just feel emotionally beat down!

As usual, when Brayden does an excellent job at these "hard" appointments, he got to choose where we went to eat! He chose Nonnie's house and I had to explain to him that we can't just invite ourselves to someone's house, but we can go to a restaurant! Whatever he chose! So we went to Unos! Grandma even joined us, which made Brayden's night! He keeps reminding me that Grandma is part of our family...that we are a family of SIX even though we don't live with her anymore!