I’m sorry I haven’t posted anything new today.\u00a0 There has been a little back-and-forth between the doctors involved, so I wasn’t sure what to say yet.\u00a0 Now that the day is nearly over, I think things are at least set for tomorrow.\u00a0 So, here is the latest:<\/p>\n
Dr. Dubin (a pediatric electrocardiologist, and one of the first heart doctors we met here at Stanford\/Lucile Packard) came by and told us that she’s will helping with Angie’s arrhythmia.\u00a0 She remembered us, even though we hadn’t seen her for about 6 years.\u00a0 She told us that she wants Angie to start on an anticoagulant (blood thinner) because of the atrial flutter she’s experiencing and also because of the clot that they saw during her CT scan.\u00a0 We hadn’t heard much about that clot, so that was a surprise to us.\u00a0 It isn’t related to the flutter she’s having since that was before she got into tachycardia, and we don’t know how long it has been there, but they are concerned nonetheless.\u00a0 Dr. Dubin also wants to get Angie on some medication that treats tachycardia called Sotalol.\u00a0 While it is unlikely that the drug will get her out of the flutter, it is a possibility.\u00a0 Regardless, they didn’t want to start that until she was on the anticoagulant, which she now gets via IV.\u00a0 Last week, they had given her Heparin in shot form every 8 hours.\u00a0 If you hate getting shots in the arm, try getting them 3 times a day in the stomach.\u00a0 Yuck.\u00a0 Now that it is delivered in her IV as a drip, it means she has to get another IV for other medicine — so she still has to be stuck again.\u00a0 Not fun.<\/p>\n
Dr. Dubin also wants to do a transesophageal echocardiogram (or TEE) to have a better look at the clot in her ventricle.\u00a0 TEEs are basically an ultrasound from inside your throat.\u00a0 It involves being put to sleep and having a breathing tube down your throat.\u00a0 Usually, they also take it out while you’re asleep.\u00a0 Angie has woken up with them still in and it is about the most unpleasant experience you can imagine coming out of a procedure.\u00a0 Dr. Dubin’s plan is to deal with the fluid problem first and then get her on anticoagulation for a month and then bring her back in for another TEE and a cardioversion (a shock to stop the arrhythmia).\u00a0 We’re not thrilled with the idea of atrial flutter for a month, but with the current state of things (fluid, clot, etc.) that is probably the best option.<\/p>\n
Dr. Lui came in later and said he didn’t want the TEE (which made Angie pleased) since it wouldn’t change what they end up doing and it means another procedure for Angie.\u00a0 We trust them both and know they are both experts, but it is hard for a patient when the doctors disagree.\u00a0 If Angie has the TEE, she’s supposed to be off of food and water for a few hours beforehand, but we’re already worried about her losing her strength and when you can’t eat, it doesn’t help.<\/p>\n
So things went back and forth and the latest from the nurse is that she can<\/em> eat after midnight, which means that she will not<\/em> be doing the TEE tomorrow.\u00a0 Of course, that may change tomorrow, but it won’t be until after breakfast (probably).<\/p>\n Today has been a bit emotional and difficult as we see the doctors struggle to figure out what to do next.\u00a0 Angie had an x-ray this afternoon that didn’t look markedly better than yesterday, which means the fluid isn’t draining very fast.\u00a0 We hope that that changes because we would prefer not<\/em> having another chest tube.\u00a0 I’m hoping that they will give her another day tomorrow to shed as much as she can before they decide what to do next.<\/p>\n I have added a new widget on the side of our blog to make it easier to sign up for email notifications of new posts.<\/p>\n Thank you all for your love and concern.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’m sorry I haven’t posted anything new today.\u00a0 There has been a little back-and-forth between the doctors involved, so I wasn’t sure what to say yet.\u00a0 Now that the day is nearly over, I think things are at least set for tomorrow.\u00a0 So, here is the latest: Dr. Dubin (a pediatric electrocardiologist, and one of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[21,8,13],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8WrW-jX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1237"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1237"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1238,"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1237\/revisions\/1238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}