America's North Shore Journal

She’s feeling better and has more mobility in her legs. Chest x-ray because of her continuing cough. I’m afraid she may have the same cold I just developed.

She also underwent a transesophageal echocardiogram (TEE). While not cheerful about it, she took it like a trooper and I am very proud of her.

A transesophageal echocardiogram (TEE) is a diagnostic procedure that uses echocardiography to assess the heart’s function. Echocardiography is a procedure used to assess the heart’s function and structures.

During the procedure, a transducer (like a microphone) sends out ultrasonic sound waves at a frequency too high to be heard.

When the transducer is placed on the chest at certain locations and angles, the ultrasonic sound waves move through the skin and other body tissues to the heart tissues, where the waves echo off of the heart structures.

The transducer picks up the reflected waves and sends them to a computer. The computer interprets the echoes into an image of the heart walls and valves.

A transesophageal echocardiogram is performed by inserting a probe with a transducer down the esophagus rather than placing the transducer on the chest. The TEE transducer works in the same manner as the one described above.

By inserting the transducer in the esophagus, TEE provides a clearer image of the heart because the sound waves do not have to pass through skin, muscle, or bone tissue.

For example, obesity or pulmonary disease (emphysema or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, also known as COPD), may interfere with the ability to obtain adequate images of the heart when the transducer is placed on the chest wall.

Certain conditions of the heart, such as mitral valve disease, blood clots or masses inside the heart, dissection (tear) of the lining of the aorta (the artery which carries oxygenated blood from the heart to the body), and implanted prosthetic (artificial) heart valves are better visualized and assessed with TEE.

Needless to say, swallowing a probe with a transducer is probably not fun. They dose you with drugs that give you amnesia about the process, which strikes me as a very good thing.

My poor baby has been poked, prodded, stuck and otherwise attended to for a week now. It’s for her own good, but the process is not designed to make you happy, just better.