A few months ago I took Ben in to see the doctor. I don't really remember what he was sick with, but while the doctor was checking him out, he happened to ask if anyone had ever told me that Ben had a heart murmur. Of course no one had, so I was a little concerned. He asked me to come back in a couple of weeks and have it re-checked. We ended up being on vacation right then, so when we got home (and Ben was sick again), I took him in and had the doctor listen to his heart again. He decided to send him for an echocardiogram, just to make sure that everything was okay.
I was fine with that, until I received the phone call telling me when his appointment was. They then proceeded to tell me that he would have to be sedated and be fasting... so NOT fun for a little boy that loves his milk first thing in the morning! I was so sick to my stomach thinking about Ben having to go through any kind of medical procedure. I tend to be a 'tad' over protective at times.
Anyways, Thursday morning came and, amazingly, Ben did quite well. He slept in until almost 7:00 (unheard of normally!). He sat nice and quiet in the van all the way to Lethbridge, even while Emma fussed and whined for 'treats' that we would give her in front of Ben (we'd already fed her breakfast, so she really didn't need anything else!). We were great until we got to the waiting room and then he started asking for milk. We managed to keep him distracted and doing pretty good for the first half hour of the wait, but then the wait went on and on and on! After over 45 minutes of waiting (our appointment was for 8:45am), I finally questioned one of the nurses. She explained that because Ben was being sedated they were waiting for a nurse and that they were all busy right then... grrr! Ben really started getting fussy because, by now, he was not only hungry, but it was nap time too!
Finally, at 10:00 we were taken to a room. The guy doing the ultrasound then came in and said that Ben should have already been sedated by then and that we'd 'missed the window' for getting the ultrasound done! I was ready to tear someone's head off by then! Both Lennard and I looked at him and explained that we did NOT want to have to come in another time. They finally figured out their schedule and the nurse came in to give Ben the stuff to sedate him. They warned us that with some kids the sedation has the opposite effect... well did it ever! Ben screamed and fought for 45 minutes before he finally was sleeping. It was horrible!
The actual test only took 15 minutes and then they wanted him awake before we could leave. It was so frustrating to have to try to wake him up after working that hard to get him asleep!
I didn't take any pictures during the actual ultrasound, but snapped one just afterwards as he was sleeping so peacefully!
We eventually got him to wake up so that we could leave. He kept looking at us and saying, "Home". We headed over to Mindy's to pick up Emma and we were on our way home! He was pretty wobbly on his feet and had a VERY long nap when we got home!
Today I went in to get the results from the echocardiogram. The doctor looked at the report and said that there is nothing wrong with his heart! He has a functional murmur, which is basically an increased blood flow through the valves. Even though I didn't think that there was anything majorly wrong, it's a relief to know that he is completely healthy.
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