A Good Appointment with Dr. Radbill

 Max had an appointment with Dr. Radbill at Vandy on May 30 to check his pacemaker and make sure it is functioning effectively. 

Our brave little baby having an echocardiogram to look at the structure of his heart, the blood flow through it, and to watch how it contracts

Crackers make everything seem easier!...

...except for EKG's. Max absolutely HATES them. He hates the stickers and he hates the wires.

Max also does not enjoy having his pacemaker adjusted up and down. Nancy, the pacemaker nurse, reads how his pacemaker is functioning. She also turns the pacemaker off to see how Max's own heart rate responds. Then she turns it up a little bit, then really high, then back to normal. They like to see how Max's heart and body respond to the adjustments. As you can imagine, all of this manipulation makes him miserably tired.

Dr. Radbill, Max's cardiologist, reviews all Max's tests and information, does his own physical exam, and then gives us his results and recommendations. We love Dr. Radbill for many reasons including his compassionate nature, excellent bedside manner, and his expertise.

Overall, the appointment went well and Dr. Radbill said everything looks fine right now. He still has a PDA (patent ductus arterioles) that will have to be fixed sometime in the next year or two. That basically means that he has a little bit of mixing of oxygenated and deoxygenated blood. Usually this goes away at birth, but Max's ductus didn't close. They will do a cardiac catheterization to correct the PDA, and Dr. Radbill assured me that it is a very simple procedure.

His pacemaker seems to be functioning well and he is meeting all his developmental milestones. We still expect to have another surgery to replace his current pacemaker sometime in the next year or two. Right now, he has plenty of battery power left. So, good news for now, and we hope this trend will continue.