Update!

We had a great day today!

For starters my Tele RN Catherine from yesterday asked to be my nurse again today and was assigned to me again. We had two great days hanging out. She is someone I think I'd be friends with if we met outside of the hospital and after spending two 12 hour shifts together we did a lot of bonding. By the end of her shifts Catherine was talking about switching from being a cardiac RN to an OB RN.

Yesterday I started reading more about fetal SVT and PAC, and Catherine helped me interpret what I read. As a Cardiac nurse she was able to fill in all the blanks that the OB nurses didn't know about. Today she went to the echo with me. I told Andrew not to worry about coming, but then once we got down to the echo-cardiogram I was glad to have a friend with me and afterwards she was able to review what the doctor told us.

Today Isaac & I met the pediatric cardiologist. She works at Children's and this hospital and teaches pediatric cardiology, so I'm satisfied with her credentials. She did the fetal echo-cardiogram. Structurally Isaac's heart looks great. He has no major defects. He has some valve leakage, most likely attributed to the SVT. It should resolve when the SVT resolves. There is also part of the fetal heart that is enlarged (but normal), but it blocks the aorta (I think, or maybe something else) and there is a possibility that the aorta is narrowed. Neither of these things are an issue for now and can be addressed when Isaac is born. He also has PAC, which has a good chance of resolving after he is born and can also be addressed then if it doesn't.

The cardiologist told us that Isaac is still spending 40% of his day in SVT, despite lots of variations of the medications & it is time for a new plan. Andrew & I kind of knew this was going to happen after yesterday's monitoring, so we were happy to have a next step.

There are lots of additional options for treatment. Tonight they are adding a beta blocker called Sotalol. Once it kicks in they will try weaning the digoxin to see if Solatol alone will manage Isaac's SVT. I'm going to be here until Thursday at least.

Monday RN - Vanessa
Monday Tele - Catherine
Monday Night RN - Lorna (I know people now & it is so nice to see a familiar face.)
Monday Tele - Lisa