Cardiology Update

Dr. D came in at 6pm! Wow, I spent the ENTIRE day waiting for that consult! Which means that I didn't move the car, go to the post office, OR get any Starbucks! Ah... there's still time for Starbucks...

Dr. D was filled in on her history, knows she has PH and an AV Canal. He knows about her HR levels dropping and de-SATing during the night. He drew a diagram on the board to show what the heart looks like with and without the AV canal and after the AV canal surgery. He showed the PH in the lungs and described how and why that has developed, and the possibility of it reversing (!!!) after her heart is fixed. He talked about the "pop-out" that will be left open to allow the heart to function under the higher pressures even with the corrected anatomy and also discussed having the pop-out closed at a later date in the cath lab :)

Dr. D described the possibilities post-op if all goes well with the surgery. Those include using oral medications to lower the PH as well as the possibility of oxygen. Possibly even a combination of all 3 (2 oral meds+O2). After all that we discussed right now. At the moment they're looking for an earlier surgery date for us (YAY!) but he did say that a difference of a few weeks is NOT going to be a big deal for Emma since any damage she has has set in. She is not going to have any dramatic increase in risk within a few weeks. He does understand that our first surgery date was early April and it has been over 2 months already and will have been 4 months by the time our current surgery date comes around.

Dr. D also ordered a medication-sedated (oral meds, not a big deal) echo tomorrow morning so they can get a decent assessment of the pulmonary pressures and function. She also will be fitted with a Holter Monitor for 24 hours starting tomorrow morning. She CAN be sent home even with the monitor and we can mail it back if ENT wants to discharge. It doesn't seem we'll be going anywhere though, but cardio isn't going to keep us here, so that's kindof good.

Oxygen was ordered if her sats aren't staying in the 90ish range on their own overnight. If she is requiring oxygen tonight then he will set us up with a portable tank to bring home and she'll be on oxygen at night until her surgery. We won't monitor at home- he said that if she needs it here, she'll need it at home and we'll use it as a preventative measure as it will only help and not hurt so there's no harm. We'll see what happens tonight.

Overall it's a lot of "wait and see"... wait and see what tonight brings with oxygen, what tomorrow morning brings with the echo, what the next few days bring with a surgery date, and what happens with the surgery for post-op care. For now we'll just take it one more day at a time :) :)