Well we got a bit of a shock (and confusion) today at Andrew's appointment. At his last ICD interrogation 6 months ago we were told if it continued on the course it was taking at that time to expect a replacment around Nov due to a depleting battery. They interrogated his ICD today and the battery has not depleted one bit since his appointment in April! The 6 months prior to the appointment in April the battery had depleted at a rather quick rate, they "thought" from pacing, and they just assumed it would continue to deplete at that rate and would be running out this month and had us prepared for surgery this fall. But for some reason it has not changed a bit since April! I asked why that would be and they could not answer my question. He had no clue why it all of sudden stopped depleting the battery. They are going to leave it in for now (no surgery!!) and went through the steps we are to take if his ICD alarm goes off (alerting us of a low battery) before he is scheduled to be seen again next April.
He also had a echo today. His septum size has increased more then I expected in the past 12 months. It has gone from 2.6 cm to 3.0 cm. It has been averaging about .1 cm - .2 cm increase per year and this past year it increased .4 cm. I was concerned about the rate of septal increase, but the cardiologist didn't seem too concerned and said to come back in the usual 6 months. He did stress to Andrew it is extremely important that he not miss his daily atenonol though. He also looked at Andrew in a reassuring way and said "We all should be relieved you have that ICD in there!"
He also had a echo today. His septum size has increased more then I expected in the past 12 months. It has gone from 2.6 cm to 3.0 cm. It has been averaging about .1 cm - .2 cm increase per year and this past year it increased .4 cm. I was concerned about the rate of septal increase, but the cardiologist didn't seem too concerned and said to come back in the usual 6 months. He did stress to Andrew it is extremely important that he not miss his daily atenonol though. He also looked at Andrew in a reassuring way and said "We all should be relieved you have that ICD in there!"

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