The Joys of the Johnsons: 6 week check-up 12-18-2014

This was a very eventful day full of new appointments for Rochelle and a full day of love and laughter with friends. Rochelle met up with the cardiologist and her primary care physician to follow her weight gain and any new changes we may encounter.

The cardiologist appointment started out with them getting an EKG before the doctor came in to do his initial assessment. She definitely did not like her clothes coming off so we didn't know how we were going to be able to last 3 hours for her echo. Once they did her weight (7 pounds, 10 ounces--YAY) and length, we had to wait a little bit and then try to get her comfortable and calm before the ultrasound tech brought us to the other room to get her echo done. After about an hour and half of looking at every possible angle of Rochelle's heart we finally got a complete reading and just waited for the doctor to come in and read the results. He did confirm that she does still have a ASD and a PDA. The ASD (hole in the top of heart toward the back) is still a moderate size causing the right ventricle to be enlarged a small amount (which is why she is going to be continuing on lasix but increased the dose to 0.4ml once a day) and the PDA looks to be getting smaller (which is usually the case in many children) to about 2cm in size. Overall great news and we all decided that it is best to just monitor the heart and do a follow-up visit in 4 months.

The appointment with the pediatrician was next and she is so good with Rochelle (always talking to her and complimenting on her hair/how cute she looks) always answers the many questions I come in with. With her steady weight gain (she said she is gaining like a healthy baby) we increased her NG tube feedings from 50ml/hr to 52ml/hr every 3 hours since she was tolerating the other feedings so well. We also got some eye ointment due to her increased secretions (yellow) around her eyes that come right back after wiping them off. She has been having increased constipation issues due to lower fluid levels (caused by her medicine lasix) and we started her on miralax to mix with her formula/breastmilk feedings as needed. She also continues on her prevacid once a day for her reflux and just answered some other minor questions we had and she said she wants us to come back in two weeks for a weight check and a follow-up to see how she is tolerating any of the changes.

Overall it was a very good day of appointments for her and let me just tell you how much manual pumping in the car is NO fun, but I would do anything to help Rochelle gain weight and grow to a strong little girl! After the appointments were done, Shane surprised me with an early Christmas present with a mani/pedi and I got my hair cut the day before! I couldn't believe it, Shane walked around the mall with Rochelle and carrying her oxygen tank and feeding bag while having her in the carrier. If that doesn't melt my heart so that I could have some alone time (well my best friend Adriane did come meet up with me which was definitely a great surprise) and get pampered which was SO nice! We then made an extra stop on the way home (at this point Rochelle was done being in her carseat) at our friend Courtney and Danny's and it was nice to have some adult time and we stayed there until 11:30pm!! We realized how good it was to just talk to our good friends (in person) and how we miss doing that, now that we all have kids now.

Thank you for the continued prayers for Rochelle, she is such a strong and amazing little girl and we cannot wait to see her flourish :)