Coraline's sedated heart Echocardiogram (echo)

Coraline was amazing yesterday for her sedated heart echo at the Evelina London Children’s Hospital! She didn’t have any food for seven hours by the time everything was finished, and was so well behaved. Medical advice was for her to have no expressed breast milk after 4.30am before our 8.30am appointment. Kev sweetly got up at 3.45am, woke coraline up (she usually sleeps 7pm-7am) and fed her and took her on the first train after 5am to keep her asleep and to avoid her being on a rush hour train. I got up 6am, pumped and joined them. I think we could have guessed who would have been the one to volunteer to get up so early! One of the nurses said, “she’s so chilled out”.

Pictures of Coraline’s heart

Coraline has an Atrioventricular septal defect (AVSD) and will require a heart operation (she has two holes in the heart and one valve as opposed to two, which they will separate). We go for monthly check ups with her Paediatric Cardiologist at the Evelina but this January appointment was a sedated echocardiogram so that they could get more detailed pictures of the heart whilst she’s not moving (she’s usually feeding and moving about).  The echo uses ultrasound waves to create images of the child’s heart. It looks at the structure of the heart and how well it is pumping blood.

Cardiologists to review the pictures

They will pass the photos on to her Paediatric Cardiologist to review in a meeting and tell us more but the Cardiologist yesterday thought her operation looks like it could be 4-6 months away. The bigger she is when they operate the better! There’s some tissue around one of the holes so it’s sealing it a bit. Her Cardiologist keeps an eye each time, as she would like her to get bigger before her operation (originally we had thought the operation would be at three months old).

They told us that we have to keep asking everyone we meet if they are well, or if they have a cold, and not be in crowded places to protect her, as if she caught one she’d have to go into hospital! So we have to keep up the vigilant lifestyle but Kev just said, “well that’s O.K. that’s our life”! In the bed next to us a boy was asking his mum, “What’s a marine mammal beginning with ‘M’? Who knows the answer? I had to look it up