Journal entry by Hope Betterman —
We had another cardiologist visit today, so figured I'd update everyone! I see people still visit the site, so I'm still going to update as things change or we get more good news!!
He had his usual echo, EKG, bloodwork today. He was such a champ! He enjoyed echo as always haha, smiled through his EKG, and didn't even cry while getting his blood drawn. There is always a person there to distract him with bubbles, fun toys, and talking to him. And he can sit in my lap through the blood draws and ekgs so that helps too!!
His heart function is still the same! Yay. He has been off his main heart meds for two months now, so this was sort of a trial period to see how he does without his meds. He rocked it! His cardiologist took him off another med today, which is the med that keeps his hearts pace making function normal. She's pretty confident he will do fine without since his heart function is good otherwise, but still makes me nervous. Without this med before he was going into SVT episodes. His heart would beat at 300 beats per minute. Sometimes he would come out of it on his own or with ice on his head, but once he needed a med to "shock" his heart out of it. I'll probably be checking his heart rate like a crazy person for a few days here... Don't mind me! ;)
The only thing right now we are dealing with is some swelling. His hands and feet get very swollen often, and now they are just always slightly swollen - then they puff up again even more. His heart is the same so we know it's not his heart. It could possibly be his kidneys but his kidney labs are drawn when he gets his blood work done, so the cardiologist didn't think it was that. The nurse today noticed right away, so did the doctor. We scheduled an appointment with his primary for tomorrow to see if she has any other ideas on what else could possibly be wrong with this sweet smiley boy!!
Attached a few pictures of his visit today. He's doing so good! :)
He had his usual echo, EKG, bloodwork today. He was such a champ! He enjoyed echo as always haha, smiled through his EKG, and didn't even cry while getting his blood drawn. There is always a person there to distract him with bubbles, fun toys, and talking to him. And he can sit in my lap through the blood draws and ekgs so that helps too!!
His heart function is still the same! Yay. He has been off his main heart meds for two months now, so this was sort of a trial period to see how he does without his meds. He rocked it! His cardiologist took him off another med today, which is the med that keeps his hearts pace making function normal. She's pretty confident he will do fine without since his heart function is good otherwise, but still makes me nervous. Without this med before he was going into SVT episodes. His heart would beat at 300 beats per minute. Sometimes he would come out of it on his own or with ice on his head, but once he needed a med to "shock" his heart out of it. I'll probably be checking his heart rate like a crazy person for a few days here... Don't mind me! ;)
The only thing right now we are dealing with is some swelling. His hands and feet get very swollen often, and now they are just always slightly swollen - then they puff up again even more. His heart is the same so we know it's not his heart. It could possibly be his kidneys but his kidney labs are drawn when he gets his blood work done, so the cardiologist didn't think it was that. The nurse today noticed right away, so did the doctor. We scheduled an appointment with his primary for tomorrow to see if she has any other ideas on what else could possibly be wrong with this sweet smiley boy!!
Attached a few pictures of his visit today. He's doing so good! :)