Dr. Cutler's exact words were "her heart looks about the same.
The right heart is really large and the left ventricle is getting
bigger--probably because it is connected to the right ventricle."
Pretty contradictory, don't you think! How can she say the heart
looks the same when it is getting bigger?
Izzy's not the Grinch after he learns the true meaning of Christmas.
I guess that is Dr. Cutler's way of telling us there is nothing to be done. Izzy's heart continues to work way too hard and the muscle continues to thicken because of the work. It was quite astounding to me to see the right atrium. It was barely visible. At first, I thought Izzy only had three chambers, but realized the really little black spot above the right ventricle was the atrium. Needless to say, the change in size of Izzy's heart was noticeable to me!
Dr. Cutler said that if accessing Izzy's heart wasn't such a difficult task, we could stop the minimal flow out of the useless natural pulmonary valve and that might help lessen the work her heart is doing. But accessing the natural pulmonary valve is all but impossible due to her coronary artery laying directly on top of it.
Since we don't live in a perfect world and the only interventions available won't do a thing to help, we are upping one of Izzy's meds to try to help her heart pump harder. She will also get a holter monitor for 24 hours (at least I think it will be for 24 hours). That will let us know if she is having any unusual rhythms randomly through the day.
Other than that, we are going to change up Izzy's immunoglobulin therapy at the end of this week to see if all the lethargy we see is merely related to her immune system wearing down at the end of the week or if it is her heart like we expect. Always some test for our little girl.
Thanks for thinking of Miss Izzy,
Melonie
Izzy's not the Grinch after he learns the true meaning of Christmas.
I guess that is Dr. Cutler's way of telling us there is nothing to be done. Izzy's heart continues to work way too hard and the muscle continues to thicken because of the work. It was quite astounding to me to see the right atrium. It was barely visible. At first, I thought Izzy only had three chambers, but realized the really little black spot above the right ventricle was the atrium. Needless to say, the change in size of Izzy's heart was noticeable to me!
Dr. Cutler said that if accessing Izzy's heart wasn't such a difficult task, we could stop the minimal flow out of the useless natural pulmonary valve and that might help lessen the work her heart is doing. But accessing the natural pulmonary valve is all but impossible due to her coronary artery laying directly on top of it.
Since we don't live in a perfect world and the only interventions available won't do a thing to help, we are upping one of Izzy's meds to try to help her heart pump harder. She will also get a holter monitor for 24 hours (at least I think it will be for 24 hours). That will let us know if she is having any unusual rhythms randomly through the day.
Other than that, we are going to change up Izzy's immunoglobulin therapy at the end of this week to see if all the lethargy we see is merely related to her immune system wearing down at the end of the week or if it is her heart like we expect. Always some test for our little girl.
Thanks for thinking of Miss Izzy,
Melonie
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