Cardiology and Life

The day for the all important Cardiology appointment finally came yesterday.  He is thinking to do the repair when she is about 4 months old (she’s 3 months old on Friday!).  Her weight isn’t as important as her age he said.  That is consistent with what the Cardiologist said in California, so I was comfortable with that.  They did 2 chest x-rays and an ECG (or EKG – I can’t ever keep those two straight).  Jason had dropped off all of her previous echoes and x-rays on Monday.  Her x-rays looked good – kinda.  Her heart is enlarged, but not too bad yet.  There is no more fluid in her chest area.  But her lungs look yucky – even I could see that.  He asked how long she had been on the ventilator.  I don’t know.  I hate that.  I wish I did.  I have been going through her medical record – all 3546 pages of it, but it’s slow going when you have to look up every other word on Google!  I’ll just have to keep at it so I can answer these kind of questions.  The Cardiologist wasn’t someone I would invite over to dinner, but he did seem very knowledgeable.  He and his team come highly recommended, so I’ll put aside the personality and pray that he can help heal our sweet girl.  He took her off one of her diuretics and sodium.  We are going to test her electrolytes on Monday to make sure all is well there.  We go back in two weeks.  They will do a sedated echo.  We will talk with a nutritionist.  He will talk about Bella during cardiology rounds (where they all get together and discuss the patients).  They said the next appointment should be 4 to 5 hours long. Sigh.

  I decided to play with Bella’s hair and give her a really good bath this morning.  She is such a cute little baby.  She continues her choking/vomiting episodes.  It amazed me today.  It was like I was watching myself as I had this experience – Bella choked, then vomited.  We had to suction out her nose, and clean out her mouth.  She got a little dusty.  I worked with her till her color came back.  Then I finished what I was doing with Joy, then started a load of wash.  Thank goodness for the training from the nurses – no panic, just taking care of my sweet baby.  This is a picture of sweet Bella a little after this morning’s choking fit.  She’s a bit pale and she’s exhausted, but she is beautiful and we love her.

To quote a book I was reading in California, “Philippines 4:13, for goodness sakes!”