Wednesday - September 10, 2007
This is in 3rd person, I just copy & pasted from Wes' note so I didn't have to type it all over again...
Ashley had to go to the cardiologist today. She has been having the same symptoms since before the end of the pregnancy that could be indicative of Peripartum Cardiomyopathy,which is a weakened heart that develops during pregnancy and the heart could just stop, that is supposed to be and can be diagnosed in the last month of pregnancy. She has been very fatigued, swelling in her feet and ankles, racing pulse, elevated blood pressure and shortness of breath since before Addison was born but they didn't do anything about it. Her blood pressure and pulse sent us to the ER the other night and they checked out her kidney function and told us to follow up with her ob since she is postpartum... The ob did some blood work yesterday and the levels in her blood didn't come back so great so they put her on iron pills and told her she would need to see a cardiologists due to her symptoms and her labs. At the cardiologist today they checked her out and she has developed heart murmurs and all her symptoms, worse case scenario, can be indicating the cardiomyopathy or, best case scenario, could just be that her heart can't handle all the extra fluid (and the trauma of the delivery on her heart) that a diuretic to remove the fluid would resolve the issue. The cardiologist has sent her home on a mild diuretic, since she is breastfeeding, to be started immediately and they have ordered an ultrasound of her heart to be done tomorrow to check the valve function, etc. She has already been suffering from shortness of breath and a racing pulse, which are things they told her could signal the worse of the two "problems", to the point that it woke her up last night from her sleep... They said that if that happens again that she needs to go straight to the ER. Needless to say she is scared and it's not really and easy situation to be in. Please keep her, and us, in your prayers and that whatever it is can and will be able to be resolved soon and safely.
Addison is still having to have daily bilirubin checks because her levels are still elevated. If her levels don't go down enough they will have to do one of two treatments, phototherapy or they would have to remove old blood from one leg while at the same time putting new blood into the next leg. So we are just praying that the bilirubin levels will go down enough and soon enough that we don't have to undergo the harder of the two treatments.
Ashley & Addison both have appointments in the morning with their doctors.
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