Samuel is Jennifer’s twin brother. He had reflux as a baby too but fortunately outgrew it by 8 1/2 months old. He spent some time on prevacid too but didn’t have nearly as hard of a time as Jennifer had with it. When Sam was born he had a heart murmur. Being 5 weeks early this wasn’t entirely unexpected but it wasn’t heard by the pediatrician on his first day of life but was heard on the second day. To just be safe they did an ultrasound of his heart. It showed that his foramen ovale was still open. This is common in preemies and we were told it should close in his first few months.
He was hospitalized along with Jennifer at 3 weeks old and they were both given another heart ultrasound since they both still had murmurs and fevers. Both still showed patent foramen ovales. Again, ok. At each well check up the pediatrician and I would talk about their murmurs and Jennifer had outgrown hers somewhere between 4-6 months old. Sam never did.
Just prior to his second birthday we saw a different pediatrician for a sick visit as I thought he had an ear infection. He looked in his ears and said they looked fine but then spent a long time listening to his chest and then referring back to his chart. At that point I knew something was coming!! He said that even if he still had the patent foramen ovale we shouldn’t still hear the murmur from it. He then wanted him to have another heart ultrasound. This time, however, he wanted a pediatric cardiologist to read it. The others hadn’t been read by one. He made it clear that he didn’t want Sam seen by the cardiologist, just that he wanted his ultrasound read by him. We had the ultrasound done about a week later on a Thursday and that Friday afternoon one of the other pediatricians from the office called and said that the cardiologist’s office would be calling to set up an appointment for Sam to be seen by the cardiologist sometime in the next month. And I was like, “what, I thought he wasn’t supposed to be seen by the cardiologist?”
Tuns out he has a condition called a subaortic membrane or subaortic stenosis. It is pretty rare but it is a heart defect and needs to be followed by a cardiologist. We saw the pediatric cardiologist in August 2007, the same month he turned 2. He actually told us that this isn’t usually diagnosed until between ages 2-3 as this membrane needs time to grow and cannot be picked up until it grows big enough to be seen. For now he isn’t symptomatic with it so he just needs to be followed yearly with heart ultrasounds and visits to the cardiologist. If he were to ever become symptomatic then he would need heart surgery to remove the membrane. They don’t routinely just do surgery to remove them because of several reasons 1) it is a big surgery that comes with risks and 2) the membrane tends to grow back.
Now, for Sam’s allergies. This one is easy!! He had the same chronic runny nose like Ben but minus the ear infections so I kinda figured he wouldn’t really respond to any allergy meds either and put it off awhile. But after going through tons of boxes of kleenex in a month I took him to the pediatrician. She suggested claritin and after 2 days on that I have barely seen anything come from his nose again!! Yipee!! So, he obviously has some sort of environmental allergy. Hopefully it is only to pollen and not dust and dust mites like his momma!! Though his nose started much sooner than pollen season so only time will tell I guess.
