The Cardiologist

October 13 and 15, 2008

It seemed to take a while for an appointment to be made with the Kaiser cardiologist. We had another appointment already set through the other insurance but we canceled that in order to have everything connected through Kaiser so that test results wouldn't need to be transferred. I started to regret that choice because I was getting impatient and wanted to know if Sarah's heart was OK.

When we finally met the cardiologist he had a great peace about him. Sarah enjoyed when he listened to her heartbeat using the stethoscope. I guess she liked how cold it was on her chest or something because she smiled and started drifting to sleep. The cardiologist seemed enthralled by Sarah drifting to sleep. I noticed that his stethoscope started to simply hover near her chest as he watched her quickly drift to sleep. He broke the silence by saying he loved watching babies peacefully fall asleep. It was such a sweet moment (if i seems slightly creepy to you then I didn't not accurately portray the situation). In that moment I could tell that he must be a father, I suspected he was a Christian, and that he truly cared about the children whom are his patients.

I mentioned that I had been impatiently (I didn't use that word but this meaning was conveyed) awaiting this appointment. He informed me that he was new to Kaiser and that he was frustrated with the scheduling department because there are many times he is just sitting in his office without any patients booked. Basically, there was no need for me to have waited so long for an appointment and he explained his understanding of how the scheduling department works. He asked that I simply call directly to his office in order to make an appointment to eliminate the wait.

He informed me that Sarah had an innocent heart murmur and that it is very common and nothing to worry about.

We scheduled a time to go to the hospital two days later so Sarah could get an echo cardiogram done.

The morning of the echo cardiogram I went to my mommy's group at church. Someone asked me about Sarah's health and I told about our appointment that day and how impressed I was with the cardiologist. It turned out the cardiologist's wife is one of the leaders of the mommy group and they attend my church. I was right in all my guesses about the type of person he was. That explained his overwhelming peace. I was introduced to his wife and was, once again, overwhelmed with new mommy and exhaustion emotions and started to cry as I thanked her on behalf of her husband for how respectful, open, and caring he was during our appointment.

The echo cardiogram showed that Sarah had a normal and healthy heart. No signs of damage.