Cardiologist report and "stuff"

Well, all in all we had a good visit today. Emma was a trooper although she did scream through everything. A bit of a GOOD sign to me since she wanted Mike and I and not the doctors! Dr. Nadkarni confirmed that she does have an AV Canal defect and needs immediate surgery. The good news there is that she believes surgery is indeed an option! The doctor that is the 'best in the area' that does heart catheterizations is on vacation for a week so we were told to expect a call to schedule something in about 2 weeks. The surgery and cath will be scheduled back to back in hopes that the cath has positive results.

Here's the scoop there. We know Emma has pulmonary hypertension (high blood pressure in the lungs) from too much blood being pumped into the lungs due to her major hole in the center of the heart which affects the upper and lower chambers as well as both valves. What we don't know is how high the pressure is and whether it is 'reactive'. A reactive pressure will change when given medication and will be able to be lowered for surgery. A fixed or nonreactive pressure is permanent and not able to be altered. Dr. Nadkarni says based on her age and a few other things she believes that Emma's is reactive and that surgery is possible.

We were sent home with the same medications that we had from Ukraine- Cantopril and Digoxin- but this time I'm sure they'll be LIQUID medications (I'll post about the lovely illicit drugs I was doing on the airplane later LOL) and appropriate medication doses for her current condition.

And Micah- YAY! He has NO DEFECT but does have a thick muscle tissue which could be the result of his mother having diabetes (the usual reason, but we have no idea if she did or not!). He will go back in 8 months to see if it's lessened and make sure it's not thickening. He is doing great though! He required sedation for the echo but came out of it fine and ate SIX ounces in the car on the way home! YAY!! We switched him to soy yesterday and he's had a much happier belly. No other meds like probiotics and such yet because we want to give him a little while to see if his little body will self-regulate.

So we are looking at surgery in 4-6 weeks in St. Petersburg at All Children's Hospital after a heart cath. The cath will be done by Dr. Suh and the surgery by Dr. Quintessenza. Dr. Q also did Brianna OHS (open heart surgery).

Also, we were able to find a tub and a highchair for Emma. Both were here local and cheap- the best part :) I was able to use gift cards from my friends at ROA (Down syndrome online group) to purchase them so that was even better. THANKS GIRLS!!!!