It came time for our first visit to the pediatric cardiologist. The cardiologist office was in the Blair E. Batson Children's Hospital at UMC. What an experience from the time we walked in the door! We were truly not prepared for the sick children we would see when we arrived. We immediately realized that we were taking our child to a "children's hospital" for evaluation. On one hand we were thankful that our child was not a cancer patient or in a wheelchair as some of the other children there were. But at the same time we wondered if we really should be in a place such as this. Obviously, we were supposed to be. That realization was tough.
We were not really that worried about this visit because we truly just expected to affirm what we already knew was the situation. Ofcourse we were holding out some hope for a miracle, but we felt we were prepared for anything. Only God can give the peace that we experienced that day.
Upon visiting with the cardiologist we confirmed that Ella Cate has three different heart conditions: aortic stenosis, pulmonary stenosis, and a coarctation of the aorta. To the best of our understanding there are two sets of valves inside her heart that allow blood to flow through her heart to the rest of her body. Those two valves are thicker than normal causing the heart to have to work harder than it should to pump the blood through those valves. This is the Aortic and Pulmonary Stenosis. The coarctation of the aorta is simply a narrowing of the aorta which basically constricts bloodflow to the rest of the body. After looking at the ECHO results, our cardiologist said that overall, Ella Cate looks better than the results are showing. She is progressing and not regressing. She's gaining weight, her color is good, she's eating well, her breathing is not labored and she has pulses to her lower extremeties, which is uncommon in heart babies. Our cardiologist introduced us to the pediatric cardiology surgeon that will help us determine what and when repairs need to be made. The first step in doing that is having a Heart Catherization done in two weeks to take measurements from inside her heart, as well as pictures so that they can positively determine the severity of the issue. This will tell us our next step.
While meeting with the cardiologist we also discussed possible treatments or procedures. It's entirely possible that they could fix the two valves by a procedure call Ballooning. This would not be a surgical procedure, but obviously there is risk involved anytime you perform an invasive procedure, especially on an infant. He advised us that the coarctation would likely be corrected by open heart surgery. However, he felt that the more urgent issue at this time was repair of the valves. There might be a slight possibility that the coarctation would become less of an issue as she, and her heart, grows. They will obviously monitor this closely. We were overwhelmed that repair of our Ella Cate's heart would be a journey and not a quick-fix. However, God once again gave us strength, peace and courage as we left the hospital that day, facing the next step of our journey.
The blessing of the day was that Ella Cate had gained a whole pound since she was born!!! She now weighs a whopping 5 lbs. 15 oz.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment