Friday, January 9, 2009

Update on Jay's Heart

Today we met with Dr. Seslar, Jay's cardiologist.

(On a side note, Jay weighed about 17-1/2 pounds today. He's a healthy growing boy!)

We're so thankful for the good news that we'll be weaning Jay off the beta-blocker heart medicine called Propranolol this week! Since we can't be sure if the beta-blocker is helping Jay not have SVT episodes or not, we'll monitor his heart rate with our stethoscope a little more closely the next couple of weeks.

The other good news is that we don't need to see Dr. Seslar again unless Jay has an SVT episode, so no follow-up visit is needed unless something happens.

Dr. Seslar reminded me of what to do if we catch Jay's heartrate going super fast. Pull his knees up to his chest, put a bag of frozen peas on his face to "shock" him, or do what Jay recently LOVES doing - hold him upside down. Jay thinks it is the best when I grab him by his shins and gently lift him up out of my lap so his face is hanging upside down in front of mine. Or sometimes he'll enjoy facing me sitting in my lap and he'll fling his upper body upside down off the end of my knees. These days we have to be more careful since he doesn't give us much warning when he wants to "play" that way.

If Jay is still in a fast heart-beat episode (SVT) for longer than 20 or 30 minutes here at home we'll be packing up our things to head to Seattle Children's ER so they can help us get his heartrate back to normal. We're praying that day will NEVER come - but at least we'll know what to do if it does happen.

3 comments:

Traci said...

Mindy,
Great news!!
Traci

Jennifer said...

Mindy,
I'm so thankful for your good news. Your little guy is so cute. One of my sons had an acute asthma attack last month, and we've been dealing with that and what to do if it happens again. This motherhood stuff is so tough. Best wishes for a healthy 2009!
Jennifer

Pam Christensen said...

That's great news. We'll keep praying that little heart behaves itself :)
Pam