Sweet girl rocking in a little bouncer!
GiGi burping the princess
Debra and Karter before she acted up!
Daddy's little girl...poor thing still had a tape mark from her canula that is now back on.
What a difference a day can make, or should I say what a difference a few hours can make. We were initially told this morning that we would be going home tomorrow. Karter was fully pulled off of her oxygen early this morning. I believe a million different thoughts ran through my head! How will I know when she is having a spell, will I be able to get her to the hospital in time, how will I sleep knowing that she could spell in her sleep....etc. I just had this huge rush of emotions on how I was going to provide the best possible care to Karter without her living at the ER in Tyler! Throughout the day and even into the early evening Karter's stats stayed in the near 70's-80's range which is what they expected them to do with her new dosage of medicine. By late evening Karter began to let her stats drop. My mom who had come down yesterday and stayed through this afternoon had just left and Terri's friend Debra had just come in when Karter started to act up a little bit. Debra had come to bring us the yummiest Mexican food for dinner and while we were suppose to be eating she was holding our little angel. I never imagined that Karter would have another spell being on the dosage of medicine she was on...but she did!
They called in a small crew of nurses, the cardiac doctor, and the respiratory team on staff. They were able to pull Karter's stats from the 30's back to the 70's then to the 80's with the help of a little bit of oxygen. Since they were able to do this in a fairly adequate amount of time they felt that Karter would be just fine....they were wrong again! Upon just a few minutes of everyone leaving the room she had another spell! At this time the Cardiac doctor decided that Karter is just not going to be able to tolerate her condition anymore. The medicine is not helping her at all and she is continuing to have spells when she is absolutely calm. Therefore we ARE GOING TO HAVE SURGERY NEXT WEEK! They are hoping that they will be able to put in a shunt in her valve that is spasming and causing these spells. This shunt should buy them time till she is larger and better able to tolerate the open heart surgery she will require. They do not want to do her big corrective surgery until this September. The Surgeon will come in tomorrow morning to consult Karter's case and decide what the best option is at this time. We will have surgery one way or another before we are able to come home. If she is to have the shunt surgery her recovering time could be any where from a week till a few weeks depending on several factors and on how well she is able to tolerate it.
At this time we do ask that you all continue to pray for our sweet angel especially since it looks like we are going to have to have more than just the one corrective surgery. So far she has stabled up tonight and hopefully will remain this way throughout the night. She is on oxygen and I do not see them weaning her off of it fully until after surgery. As soon as I know more I will update the blog and Facebook on what route the surgeon decides to take.
Love,
The McHams'
Praying for you guys daily. Karter sure is a cutie.
ReplyDeleteThat's what happened with my brother. He had the shunt at about 9weeks (my mom may correct me on that) until he was about 9-10months and then he had the open heart. My family knows what you're going through and we're all praying for you and your family.
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