Now, actually 7 months later, Laura has been cleared!! She can resume to all normal activity and does not need to take her baby aspirin any longer.
When the Doctor listened to her heart I could tell that he had a concerned look on his face. They did their routine echocardiogram and when the Doctor walked in he immediately asked the nurse about her mitral valve. The nurse said everything looked great. After that he told us that if she ever has to go to the emergency room in the future that we should know that he heard an extra "sound" in her heart. Not a murmur, or extra beat, just a "sound." He said everything looked great and we shouldn't be concerned.
When Laura and I left, we just laughed and decided that she just has a "musical" heart. We both thought about the movie "Santa Clause" where the doctor listened to his heart and he heard "Jingle Bells!" Anyway, we had a good laugh, but we are so thankful that the procedure worked and her hole is closed!
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| This is a picture of a Septal Occluder Amplatzer. This is the device they inserted into Laura's heart. The size of her hole was about the size of a nickel, the device was the size of a quarter. |
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| At the bottom, you can see a thick wire. The wire is inserted in to the groin, and when they get the wire in the heart they push the device out of the wire. |
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| Once the device is situated on either side of the hole (in Laura's case it was an Atrial Septal Defect, so it was between her right and left atrium) the amplatzer is closed and secured and the wire is released. The wire comes out of the groin, and within hours the membranes in the heart start forming around the device to hold it in place. Now, after 7 months, it's totally enclosed and secure. On the echo it looks like a "vanilla wafer" moving up and down with the tissue. Praise the Lord for the people that invented all these medical devices, and procedures!! |
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