Anabelle's Heart

Earlier this week we found out that Anabelle has a heart condition. We sent out an email to friends and family to let them know what had happened:

On Thursday morning I got up at 5:00 because she was more fussy than normal. When I changed her diaper I noticed that her feet were ice cold. I put a pair of socks on under her jammies, bundled her back up, added a little hat, and put her back to bed. When she woke up later around 9:00 she was still fussy and didn't want to eat much. Her diaper was also dry. I checked her feet again and they were still ice cold. My mom suggested that we take her temperature and when we did it was only 93 degrees. We tried a different thermometer and got another low reading.

I called the pediatrician to get their opinion and left a message for someone to call us back. Then we called my wonderful sister-in-law Afton. She's in her fourth year of medical school. She decided to come over and take a look at her. When she arrived she listened to Anabelle's heart with her stethoscope and said that her heart was beating too fast to count. She said that we should take her to our pediatrician to have her looked at so she and I drove there together. My mom is in town so she was able to stay at the house with Hayden. The pediatrician also heard her fast heart rate and suggested I try and feed her to see if that would help calm her down. When that didn't work she immediately recommended that we take her downtown to Phoenix Children's Hospital. She called ahead and told the ER to expect us and we called Matt and asked him to meet us there.

When we arrived Afton dropped us off and I went inside with Anabelle. I expected to have to wait in the waiting room, but they put a heart rate monitor on Anabelle in the waiting room. Her heart rate was 250 bpm and the nurses said that they thought the reading was wrong. But then they immediately ushered us into a room. Within a few minutes the small room was crowded with 8 doctors and nurses (plus me and Afton) and they all had their hands on Anabelle. There were an additional 5-6 people crowded around the door outside of our room as well. The doctor told us that her heart was beating too fast and that they were trying to slow it down. They tried to get her heart rate down with an ice treatment and Matt walked into the room at that point. When that didn't work they used an IV to push medicine into her heart. The medicine made her heart stop for a couple of seconds and when it restarted it was slower. They had to do this twice before her heart returned to a more normal rate.

Once she was stabilized they took an x-ray, did an EKG, and then an ultrasound of her heart. We met with the cardiologist and he said that she had supraventricular tachycardia (SVT). After additional testing they determined that she has an accessory pathway in her heart and she has "Wolff-Parinson-White syndrome" (WPW). (About 30 minutes before we met with the cardiologist Afton said that she thought that Anabelle might have had SVT and that she may also have WPW. She did a great job of explaining what that meant and she also drew us pictures to help us better understand exactly what was going on in Anabelle's heart).

They decided to admit Anabelle into the ICU to continue to monitor her and to start her on medication. Walking into the ICU was so hard because it was full of other kiddos that also had heart problems. I stayed the night with her there and she did very well overnight. Her breathing became more normal and her heart rate stayed low. I was also able to nurse her again which was so nice. Granted, she was hooked up to a bunch of machines and wires but it was great to be able to snuggle with her.

My mom and Afton came back to the hospital on Friday morning and then Matt joined us at 1:00. We met with another cardiologist that afternoon and he further explained WPW to us. He said that Anabelle will have to be on medication for at least a year and we will meet with him for check ups. He said that the accessory pathway could go away by the time that she's two and if it does then she shouldn't have any additional issues. In the meantime though she could go back into SVT. If she does go back into SVT we have a few methods that we can try to get her out of it before we would have to take her back to the hospital.

What does this all mean? Well, he said that if she goes back into SVT it's more of annoyance than an emergency. He gave us a list of things to watch for and also gave us a stethoscope so we can check her heart rate if we're worried that she's having another episode. She is now taking Propranolol three times a day and will continue that until she's one.

So, we came home last night (Friday) and have been trying to settle back into our regular routine (well, our NEW regular routine). We feel so fortunate that this heart condition is treatable and that it's something that she could even possibly grow out of. We are also so fortunate to have such wonderful family and friends that were sending us love, thoughts and prayers. It all happened so quickly that we didn't have a lot of time to let everyone know what was going on so we appreciate your love, thoughts and prayers even now. :)

We wanted you all to know what's going on and because it's such a long story thought that it might be easier to email everyone. But, please don't hesitate to call or email us if you have questions or want to know more. We would love to hear from you.