Friday, June 27, 2014

Cardiology Update

Evanna admited to Unit 2 at ACH
ECHO - June 26, 2014
We’ve had quite the week here in the Irvine home. Last Saturday, Evanna and I went to Fort McLeod for my cousin’s bridal shower. Evanna was really fussy the whole evening – she wasn’t eating very well and overall was not her content and happy self. Finally around 9:30pm, my mom and I packed Evanna up and headed back to Calgary. We got home around 11pm and I noticed that her breathing was very laboured. Her diaphragm was also sucking in more than usual and her colour was also a little off. So after only being home for 5 minutes, we packed Evanna back up and headed to the hospital so she could get checked out.
The nurse in triage took us straight to the back (skipping registration) and the pediatrician saw us right away (last time I was in that same ER for myself, it took 6 hours before I even saw a physician). They took her history and vitals and called the pediatric cardiologist over at ACH (Alberta Children’s Hospital) for her opinion. We told them that her feeding had been decreasing over the past week, and she didn’t eat very much the past 24 hours. Just as a precaution they decided to straight admit her to Unit 2 (the heart and lung unit) at ACH. It ended up being that Evanna’s reflux (spitting up) was hurting her, which explains the decrease in feeding over the past week. After giving Evanna a reflux medication the next morning, she started improving immediately. They kept us for 24 hours so they could observe her and once they felt she was fine, we finally went home on Monday morning. Though all together it was only 38 hours, it was emotionally and physically exhausting. Being in the hospital sucks, and I was soo glad to be discharged. Thankfully Nick was at the start of his 4 days off from work on Monday, so when we got home, I had a hot bath and headed straight to bed while Nick completely took over on baby duty.

Yesterday Evanna had her ECHO and appointment with Dr. Fruitman. Dr. Fruitman was pleased with Evanna’s oxygen levels and weight gain, and couldn’t believe how much bigger she’s gotten since she last saw Evanna. Every Tuesday Dr. Fruitman meets with the Edmonton team for rounds by teleconference, but because this upcoming Tuesday is a holiday, she will present Evanna and her case at the following Tuesday (July 8) meeting. From there they will schedule a Cath (Nick prefers to use the term Angiogram) up in Edmonton sometime at the end of July/beginning of August, and call to let us know when that will be. The Cath will be able to provide a better picture of her heart and how everything is flowing. This will enable them to figure out a surgery plan as there are many different scenarios to consider right now, but only after they can see the whole picture of her heart will they know which direction to go. I asked Dr. Fruitman if she could guestimate a surgery timeline, and her best guess is this Fall, but we’ll know a lot more after this Cath. We also found out some other information about our sweet Evanna, but I’ll save that for later as it deserves a post of its own. Thank you everyone for your continued awesome  support – we truly appreciate it.

xo The Irvine’s

2 comments:

  1. Sounds like good news! Happy to hear it! Hopefully the good news keeps on coming, keeping you guys in our prayers :)

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  2. What a beautiful family! I stumbled upon your blog from another heart mom. Might I suggest looking into Dr. Frank Hanley at Stanford? He pioneered the surgery for Tet PA MAPCAs and currently performs the surgery once a week. It might be worth looking into, I know how scared and alone this diagnosis can make you feel, sometimes it is nice to have someone so familiar with it. Of course I would be happy to answer questions too if you like. In the meantime I will keep you in my prayers!

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