{"id":5622,"date":"2011-04-10T15:57:13","date_gmt":"2011-04-10T20:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/?p=5622"},"modified":"2011-04-10T20:51:37","modified_gmt":"2011-04-11T01:51:37","slug":"fontan-day-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/?p=5622","title":{"rendered":"Fontan Day 14:"},"content":{"rendered":"

5:07 PM <\/strong>This post was intended to be a photo of the three of us on our front porch.\u00a0 We were discharged this morning and were looking forward to surprising McCanless at home this evening.\u00a0 We got the clear from cardiology after chest tubes were pulled and her echo was clear.\u00a0 We had a follow up cardio clinic appointment set for Tuesday, discharge instructions and the car packed and ready to go.\u00a0 We took photos with our nurses and hit the road around 11 AM.\u00a0 It felt so nice to be in the car with Mary Clare and heading home.\u00a0 The sun was shining beautifully, so we decided to celebrate and enjoy brunch outside at one of our local favorites, Fleet Landing.<\/p>\n

The warm breeze blew her blonde ponytails and she watched dolphins dance in the ocean.\u00a0 She crawled up into my lap to take a rest, I thought.\u00a0 Moments later, Mel noticed her seizing.\u00a0 The events that happened next were no short of a nightmare for both of us.\u00a0 She stiffened and seemed to be in pain, which made Mel think it was her heart.\u00a0 We realized quickly it was a seizure and within minutes, a nurse, a doctor and paramedic who all just happened to be at Fleet Landing from separate parties were at her side, checking her pulse and her chest for breaths and calling 911.\u00a0 Her convulsions stopped\u00a0 after about 2 minutes and she lay on her side while bystanders crowded.\u00a0 She wasn’t breathing and grew pale white with silver blue lips.\u00a0 Time stood still.\u00a0 I just knew she was gone.<\/p>\n

Mel was already on the phone with our cardiologist and we were told to go straight back up to 8D.\u00a0 We refused the ambulance so we could skip the ER.\u00a0 We left Fleet Landing after she slowly gained consciousness.\u00a0 In the ambulance leads had been placed, O2 and blood sugar checked.\u00a0 She was stable enough for the drive back to MUSC.\u00a0 It’s funny how your brain continues to work even when all you want to do is concentrate on one thing.\u00a0 As I held her in my arms in the back of our car, I noticed everyone on the street.\u00a0 Most were tourists enjoying the warm, sunny day in beautiful Charleston. I couldn’t help but notice their colorful clothing, big sun hats and cameras.\u00a0 I imagined they were shopping and chatting about the\u00a0 rich history of the city.\u00a0 Couldn’t they see that I was devastated?\u00a0 Couldn’t they tell that Mel was driving like a mad man to get our baby back to the safest place for her?\u00a0 Everything was in slow motion.<\/p>\n

We are back in our room now, Mary Clare is sleeping (which is typical after a seizure) and we’ve already talked to two neurologists on-call , her surgeon, Dr. Bradley, and one of her cardiologists. Depakote, a daily medication to prevent her seizures is a must at this point.\u00a0 It will be a slow process to get her dosage\/amounts adjusted for her, but we’ll begin tonight with her first dose at 9:00 PM.\u00a0 At least we have a plan for now.\u00a0 Soon she will wake up and not remember any of this.\u00a0 She may wonder why we are back at MUSC.<\/p>\n

Her medical team strongly feels that her seizures have nothing to do with her heart.\u00a0 She has Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome.\u00a0 She has Epilepsy.\u00a0 Her heart is fine.\u00a0 (It’s just half sized.)\u00a0 Her brain is fine.\u00a0 (It just likes to have seizures.) She’s on daily asprin and meds for her little heart, and now she will be on daily meds for her little brain.\u00a0 God just decided to give me a wonderfully complicated, high maintenance baby girl.\u00a0 (Good thing He gave me Mel to learn how to deal.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

5:07 PM This post was intended to be a photo of the three of us on our front porch.\u00a0 We were discharged this morning and were looking forward to surprising McCanless at home this evening.\u00a0 We got the clear from cardiology after chest tubes were pulled and her echo was clear.\u00a0 We had a follow […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5622"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5643,"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5622\/revisions\/5643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}