This morning my three little ducklings and I walked down the halls of Duke Medical Center to the genetics clinic.
This walk was long in the making.

My cardiologist has never been particularly interested in whether my oldest daughter and I share a genetic mutation that caused our cardiomyopathies; or whether my son also has this mutation and is forming his own cardiomyopathy or if he just has a larger than normal heart.

The information is superfluous because it changes neither our prognosis nor our treatment.
For the same reason our pediatric cardiologist, though immensley curious, was unable to justify the expense – until now.

It will be a long six weeks waiting for results that ultimately will change very little. My oldest daughter will still be advised not to have any children of her own unless her heart function returns to normal between now and her child bearing years. My son will still be followed to make sure no dysfunction develops to match his large heart. Everything will remain status quo with me, and my youngest daughter may or may not have to continue bi-annual cardiac checkups.

Still, I feel like we’ve taken an important step. We’re six weeks closer to a piece of the puzzle that we didn’t have before.