Day 34 - September 16, 2014
Today LoLa's doctor has a long sitdown conversation with Sean and I to review everything he and I had discussed yesterday and answer the litany of follow up questions I have from that conversation. He is so clear, open and down to earth about everything. We leave that meeting feeling much more confident and empowered to take our daughter home, even if it will be with her attached to a machine.
We are given the name of a discharge nurse who will be our point of contact to arrange the medical equipment supplier for the monitor, and another company who actually downloads the monitor readings and interprets them, relaying the results to our pediatrician. We discuss arrangements for our overnight stay in the family suite and reserve the room for September 18th.
The next few days will be full of tests to ensure everything is okay for her to
discharge. Today she has a repeat echocardiogram and a head ultrasound (pictured). The echo shows that one of the
holes in her heart is fully closed, but a murmur remains called a PPS. Peripheral pulmonic stenosis is considered normal for babies under 7 pounds because their blood vessels are very small, which causes turbulence in the flow of the blood, which can be heard in the form of a murmur.
The head ultrasound is repeated to ensure that there is no bleeding on the brain. It would be very rare for that to be the case considering her initial ultrasound was negative, but it is best to check before discharge just to be sure. This test is negative as well.
Sean and I are scrambling to make arrangements for time off work as well as doing our best to prepare, especially mentally, for bringing LoLa home in the next few days.