update on liam

Well we had Liam's cardiology appointment Wednesday morning, and it went well. Basically the cardiologist reassured us, that most likely, this is nothing to be concerned about. There still is that little MOST LIKELY factor that bothers me a little. He wanted to make sure Liam was acting and playing like a normal toddler...we reassured him that this is NOT a problem :).

Let me just start out by saying how proud of Liam I was. The first thing they did was a 12 lead EKG, which involves putting 12 little stickers all over his body, and then attaching a wire to each sticker. From this they can see a read out of your heart rhythm. You have to hold very still while they do this so they can get a good reading, (you can imagine how this might be hard with a 16 month old), but he did a great job! I think he was pretty scared, so he just laid really still and looked around, wondering what in the heck was going on. The EKG confirmed that he does still have an irregular heartbeat, that is "trigeminal". This meaning, he has an irregular beat (called a PVC), that happens every third beat. The reassuring part of this is that, when he is active and his heartrate speeds up, the PVC's slow way down and sometimes, go away all together. This is very good, that they don't speed up when his heart speeds up.

The second thing they did at the appointment was an echocardiogram (a sonogram of the heart). This was the check the size of his heart, the condition of the muscle of the heart, the bloodflow, and to confirm that there was no fluid around the heart. All of this came back normal. Praise the Lord! He said that Liam's heart muscle looked very good, and shows no signs of damage. So then, he drew us a picture :). There are two nodes in your heart that fire the electrical impulses (the SA node, and the AV node). Liam has an extra little node somewhere between these two that wants to misfire, every third beat. And according to Dr. Allen, this is nothing to be concerned with at this time. He said that he sees about 3-4 kids a month that come in with this, and usually the irregular beats just resolve on their own. They don't know what causes them or how to prevent them, they just happen. He did say there was a rare chance that this can be a warning sign of an event in the future, but there is no way to know if this is the case. This a very very slim chance. In the meantime, Liam cannot have large amounts of chocolate, any caffeine, or over-the-counter cough or cold medicines (basically anything that would artifically speed up the rate of his heart). We are going to follow up with Dr. Allen in 6 months and they will probably do these same tests again and see how things are progressing.

So, overall, it was a very reassuring appointment. There still is that small chance, that something bigger could be wrong, but we are just putting our trust in the Lord, that Liam is just fine :). Dr Allen also talked with a pediatric rhythm specialist, about Liam, and he recommended the same plan of care at this time. So that was very reassuring to us. Thanks so much for everyones thoughts and prayers :)