Wednesday, April 28, 2010

UPDATE FROM MOMMY

mommy's taking over to update so no one is left out of the loop.....
@appt yesterday she got her 3rd HepB shot. her typical reaction to all vaccines is generally cranky/fussy/mild fever. yesterday she was more fussy/clingy than normal, and her fever was a little higher than usual after a shot; she was also lethargic - we dosed tylenol as normal, and just continued to keep an eye on her. around 700 went to put her to bed as normal; while she was falling asleep i laid my arm across her chest and noticed her heart rate seemed really fast. i checked it, twice, and got 200 and 204, respectively. as she was just about asleep i did not move her (since she was breathing fine, etc) but got chas to get his stethoscope and come listen to her heart to get a more accurate rate. he got 160 - better, but still a little high. after talking to the oncall dr we decided (on their advice) to just keep an eye on her, since fever can cause a spike in heartrate. after she fell asleep, it did go back down (130, 120) BUT while listening i heard an extra sound that had not been there before. chas also listened and heard it. just after that her heartrate went back up, and she woke up screaming a scream we have never heard before. at this point we put her in the car and took her to the ER.
her fever broke as we were walking in the door, which was not a bad thing per se but was not good, since they basically blew us off from that point on. we sat in the waiting room for 1/2hr, before being taken back to Fast Care. It took the dr another 20mins+ to come in and see us - i had time to nurse fully (and did so). when the dr did finally come in she did a half-hearted exam, barely listened to her chest (moved her stethoscope 6 times in 15 seconds), putzed around, said she's fine go home. not a word about the extra sound, or anything - only yelling at us for listening, saying 'its not your job to listen' and 'you aren't allowed to do that'.
so we brought her home, and continued to monitor her here - her fever stayed down, so did her heartrate, but i heard the extra sound again, so i called the on-call dr back, and asked what to watch for. she said a fever can sometimes cause a heart murmur, which may be what you are hearing, but it should go away since the fever is gone. cool, not a problem, just watching/monitor overnight etc.
this morning, however, when i woke up and listened, i still heard the extra sound, and she had no fever. i called the dr and left a message for them, they called me back and after i explained to the nurse everything that happened, she said bring her in. took her in, the dr heard it right away, said otherwise she looks great, her heartrate is nice and even, not high, not low, her color is good, shes not quite acting back to normal yet (is clingy and fussy) but since she did just have a fever that can be normal. he said its not a heart murmur. most likely it is physiologic split S2, which is not an issue, but to be on the safe side we are going to be seeing a pediatric cardiologist, to rule out any other issues, since this is new.
no clue which ped cardio, or when, i will update when we know more. so far though she seems to be doing okay.

2 comments:

  1. I hope that everything is ok- keep us posted on bbc!!

    -Ally200453

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