Bel-Bel's Heart

Bel-Bel is what Adeline calls Annabel, and it's starting to catch on.  Jon and I have a hard time calling her anything else.  I don't want it to become a permanent nickname that everyone calls her, though.  I think it's a sweet little family thing, for now.

Anyway, Annabel had her first appointment with a specialist in Little Rock at Arkansas Children's Hospital today.  She had another EKG (to measure electrical firing/beats of the heart) and an Echocardiogram (it's a sonogram of the heart to look at all the structures).  Then we met with the nurse practitioner to the Electrophysiologist.  That is a specialist in the rhythms of the heart.  I thought I'd make bullet points of what we learned today.

• Annabel's EKG still shows that she has WPW.  The disorder they diagnosed her with in the NICU that can cause your heart to go into a fast rhythm (SVT).  
• She will need to take medication for this until she is 2-3 years old when she will be old enough to tell us if her heart is racing.
• She will live a normal life and this will not restrict her from any activities.
• In the NICU, her echocardiogram showed that she had what the pediatrician called a "floppy tricuspid valve."  This was allowing blood to go in the wrong direction.  This is completely unrelated to the WPW.  It is very common in babies and usually corrects itself and most people never even know they have it.  The only reason we knew Annabel had it was because they did an echocardiogram to figure out why she was having the fast heart rate.  
• The nurse practitioner today told us that Annabel's has only a hairline opening and is not a concern of hers at all.
• When she looked at the echocardiogram from today she informed us that this opening is even smaller now than it was when she was born.  Praise Jesus!  She believes the valve will be completely closed and functioning normally soon.
• She increased her dosage of medication today since she now weighs 9.5 pounds!
• Annabel will need to wear a Holter monitor for 24 hours after she has been on the new medication dosage for a couple days.
• This monitor will just measure her heart rate continuously for 24 hours then I will send it back to Little Rock where they will analyze it.  
• She wants to make sure Annabel's heart rate isn't spiking without us knowing and to make sure the medication is working.
• We will have to go to Little Rock to meet with her every 2 months for a while.  She said after our December appointment, if the results from the Holter are good, then we may have to only come every 3 months.  

Annabel did great through it all.  She slept the entire way to and from Little Rock.  She screamed bloody murder during the 30 minute echocardiogram, but I don't blame her.  I wouldn't want to sit there naked and have some lady rubbing goo and a camera all over my torso.  :)  Overall, it was a good experience.  Everyone there was so nice and informative.  Jon and I left feeling very good about everything.  My fears and worries are much less now knowing my girl is healthy.  Walking through ACH made me realize how very thankful I am that my baby only has this.