Everyday Morning

On Friday we had Warrior's appointment with the cardiologist. In September he started conditioning for lacrosse, which included lots of running and weight lifting. In November after running for 40 minutes he told his coach that he was having chest pains and shortness of breath. The coach blew it off as him not cooling down long enough after running.

So of course Warrior didn't tell me because he didn't want to worry me. Then during Christmas break he was having problems breathing after walking up some stairs. As soon as we got home we went to the doctor. She referred him to a cardiologist. This made me nervous because we had to fight with her to get a referral to a gastric specialist a couple years ago.

I wanted to get him in to see one of Tin Man's doctors, but earliest they could get us in was in March. Since Warrior playing lacrosse depended on what the cardiologist said, I had to give in and schedule an appointment with the local one.

After EKG and an echo, he told us that Warrior has a hole in his heart. Called Patent Foramen Ovale. Its about 4mm in size. He said between its size and that Warrior is having symptoms we can't ignore it, but just monitor it right now. He did sign off on letting Warrior play lacrosse, but only because he's the goalie, so he doesn't do much except stand there.

He did tell him he's not allowed to run a lot and he has to listen to his body. If he starts having any more chest pains, shortness of breath, or the irregular heart beats, then he's supposed to let me know right away so I can call and make an appointment for him so we can set him up with a holter monitor to find out what else is going on.

Warrior after the EKG removing the stickers. He wasn't to thrilled that he had to lay under a poster of spiders.

During the echo. Before doing the echo Dr. T asked Warrior what he wanted to be and Warrior told him a cardiothoracic surgeon. So Dr T. gave him a step by step walk through of the echo and showing him the different chambers and the blood flow.