Cardiology

Maggie's exercise today was a stress test on the treadmill. She did fine. Didn't quite have the endurance they would like to see, but her heart responded just fine to the exercise. We definitely need to increase our efforts to get her working hard and sweating daily.

The doctor detects "minor" leakage from her pulmonary valve. When we were in a year ago, the leakage was "trivial." Doctor says he can hear it now, whereas last year the leak was detectable only via the echocardiogram. (So, that means Matt might want to bring a stethoscope next Sunday for a fun little listen???)

Although it's likely to be years away, if her valve should continue to leak more and cause trouble for her right ventricle, the doctor expects valve replacements to be done routinely through catheterization by the time she needs her next one. If so, that would hopefully mean no more surgeries. He also explained something today that I just haven't been able to picture: valve replacement is done by inserting a stent with a valve in it. Up till today I just couldn't picture how they could hook up a valve to an already existing artery. I also appreciated the forethought of the doctor who suggested making the next appt for 11 months instead of 12, so as to piggy-back on this year's deductible and co-pays which will probably have been met for the year already with just today's one visit.