2000 Appointment
Children's Hospital, Seattle, WA; 11 September 2000 at 2:00 pm -- Dr. Michael Portman

Emma - Christmas 1999

A lot has happened since the last update in January 1998. As it turned out, Emma was not allergic to dairy products. She eats anything she wants to eat. Her appetite seems to have returned in the last year or so. She can really put the food way now. In fact, Emma is 7 years old now and weighs 47 lbs.

Emma was on the Captopril for quite a while - maybe a year. I can't quite remember. I do remember that Dr. Portman said that her heart's regurgitation was holding steady and that is why he took Emma off the medicine. Emma has done fine for the last two years. Her 1999 annual cardiology appointment gave her a fairly clean bill of health as nothing significant had changed. Dr. Portman said he would see us next year.

It is "next year" already. Emma's annual cardiology appointment was on September 11th, 2000. She was scheduled for a chest x-ray and an EKG. Both of these tests were done very quickly, however after viewing these tests, Dr. Portman decided to take an echocardiogram. It was a very busy day so Emma and I waited about an hour to get in and another 45 minutes for the test. The results of these tests showed Dr. Portman that Emma's heart had enlarged quite a bit this year from the regurgitation in her mitral valve. He prescribed a medication, Enalapril, which is a high blood pressure medication. Its job is to relax the walls of the arteries leaving the heart so the blood will flow more easily out of the heart, hopefully minimizing the amount of regurgitation. He is giving Emma a six-month trial period to see if the medication will work well enough to put off the necessity of a valve replacement for a while longer. He also will be talking to Dr. Lupinetti, the surgeon, to discuss any reasons why a valve replacement should be postponed longer, or if it is something that we should go ahead with sooner rather than later.

Blood Pressure Check
Providence St. Peter Hospital, Olympia WA; 18 September 2000 at 2:00 pm -- Dr. Sarah Murdoch

Emma had to have her blood pressure checked after being on the Enalapril for a while. We visited her regular pediatrician and everything checked out okay.