Vera saw the cardiologist yesterday. Her PDA has fully closed! It's a miracle, isn't it? It was a large one at birth, became a small one at 3 months and now fully closed at 6 months.
This little girl is a fighter with a heart that wants to beat on.
However, our joy was tempered by some not so good news. Vera's blood pressure is higher than normal for babies. They took it once when she was crying and it was close to the levels of an adult. I've read that hypertension is one of the issues for T18 children, and medication must be taken to control it. It can also be a sign of problems with the kidney (renal function).
We're going for ultrasound scans for her kidney next week, before the doctors decide on further course of action. Fingers crossed!
2 comments:
My daughter was born with a number of birth defects and it was assumed she had Trisomy 13 or 18, but we decided not to get testing, so we don't know for sure. But she has a "horseshoe kidney" and had high blood pressure the first year of her life, until some doctors decided maybe it was better to treat it, so now we give her medication for that. It is not a hard thing to do (hopefully you can get a blood pressure machine to see how the medication is working and make sure you know if it gets too low - so you can not give the medication when it's too low). Also, her kidney doctor says that often children outgrow the need for the medication, and that given enough time, they get normal blood pressures. So don't get discouraged about that one.
Also, I saw the comment you left on Annabel's (Cathy's) blog, about her not smiling. My daughter didn't smile much or very consistently until she was a year old (her birthday, she got a big balloon and didn't stop smiling all day!). Now she smiles all the time. Some things just take time. And every baby (not just babies with Trisomy 18) is different, and some are more smiley and some are not. The fact that ALL babies are different from each other is something I have to keep reminding myself, and not compare my daughter to someone like Annabel ... who is just a CRAZY smiling machine! :)
I love the pictures of your beautiful girl.
connie
connie
Connie, thank you so much for visiting and for your reassurance! your experiences helps tons, cos we've no clue what's happening sometimes.
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