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Category: dahlia

  • Pediatric cardiologist

    Pediatric cardiologist

    Dr Hesslein was able to diagnose Dahlia’s issues pretty easily by looking at the EKG they did while she was at the ER earlier in the week. He called her condition “SVT”. In SVT, supraventricular tachycardia, the heart rate is sped up by an abnormal electrical impulse starting in the atria. The heart beats so fast that the heart muscle cannot relax between beats. When the chambers don’t relax, they cannot contract strongly or fill with enough blood to meet the body’s needs. Because the heart can’t contract the way it should, the brain may not receive enough blood and oxygen. It can make her feel light in the head, dizzy, or feel like her heart is racing or pounding. He says it will happen again but there is no knowing when. When she has an episode we can do physical maneuvers to help stop the rapid rate like holding her breath and bearing down, gagging her, or dunking her head in ice cold water. We can try to stop it by ourselves for up to 2 hours before heading to an ER for medicine. If the episodes become more frequent or more bothersome we can put Dahlia on medication or schedule radiofrequency ablation, a surgical procedure that uses catheters to destroy the tissue that causes the rapid heartbeat. 

  • At the ER

    At the ER

    These are pictures of calmer moments at the emergency room. Getting an
    IV into Dahlia’s arm was a harrowing experience. After about 3 pokes
    in the midsection of her left arm they were unable to find a vein.
    Dahlia was crying and very upset. They suggested trying the other arm
    and Dahlia lost it completely. She started screaming, kicking, yelling
    “I want to go home. I feel fine.” It was so hard to watch. They were
    very good with her. They gave her a moment to settle down on her own
    but they could see that she was not going to be reasoned with. They
    had to wrap her in a sheet like a papoose before sticking her again
    closer to her wrist. After a blood-curdling scream the IV was finally
    in place. They didn’t like putting the IV in so far down the arm. They
    needed to get the medicine to her heart quickly for it to work
    correctly. On the way home she apologized for kicking me. She told me
    she was just really nervous and I told her “I know Dahlia, I was
    nervous too.”

  • Dahlia at the hospital

    Dahlia at the hospital

    When we left the park Dahlia was complaining that her heart was
    beating fast. Once home she was sitting at the computer and she told
    me she felt sick and her heart hurt. I put my head to her chest and
    her heart was going nonstop. I took her upstairs to Joe and he
    immediately called the nurses phone line. They said, “Call 911. We don’t want
    to waste time by talking to you.” Joe took Dahlia to the ER while I
    took Monti to her friend’s house. At the hospital her heart rate was
    between 250 & 260. They tried to slow it down by manipulating the
    arteries on her neck with hard massage but it didn’t work. They ended
    up having to put an IV in her so they could get some medicine directly
    to her heart. They called the condition PSVT and the drug they used
    was called adenosine. It worked great and brought her heart rate to
    about 130. They did some blood test and a chest x-ray which all came
    back normal. We will have to follow-up with a cardiologist. 

  • at the new park

    at the new park

    The girls try out the new equipment in the park. We counted the steps
    to the park from our house. It is 328 steps. The kids were
    disappointed that there were only baby swings but they found a
    workaround.

  • Day off school

    Day off school

    We headed down to the Pacific Science Center on one of the days off this past week. We saw a great live show on combustion and an IMAX film about the first completed expedition from source to sea on the Nile. The highlight for the kids, however, was getting ice cream afterwards of course.

  • Lockdown drill

    The kids during the week had a lockdown drill at school. Dahlia explained that it is what they do when there is a bad person who enters the school. She told me the teacher locks the door, covers the windows, and they sit on the floor and hold their breath (literally). I do wonder if this truly prepares the kids for a likely event or if it gives them another thing to unnecessarily stress about in life. After researching it a little I found that on average 1 person is killed each year and 80 are injured in school fires. In the last 10 years there have been 118 shooting deaths on school property. This only includes K-12 schools. So sadly I have concluded that there is good reason to practice a lockdown situation at such an early age. Dahlia is still waiting for us to practice a lockdown drill at home.

  • Picking out their sticker after flu shots

    Picking out their sticker after flu shots

    I did not tell the kids what we were doing until we pulled into the
    doctor’s parking lot. Dahlia immediately started panicking, kicking
    off her shoes and crying and I thought we were going to have a repeat
    of last year when it took 3 adults to hold her down for her flu shot. I
    told her I would carry her if she refused to go in. She took a
    moment, asked for me to give her her shoes, and she told me she would be
    brave. They were both very mature about it. Monti said it felt like
    they hit a bone and Dahlia cried for a minute after. I am so glad we are
    done with flu shots this year.

  • Monti’s choice for hiking clothes

    Monti’s choice for hiking clothes

    I told the girls to dress for hiking in the morning. Dahlia actually
    put on jeans and was so excited to discover she “looked just like a
    teenager” in them. Monti chose this ensemble to do her hiking in. I
    guess I was just happy she was wearing boots instead of dress shoes.

  • Posing for pictures

    Posing for pictures

  • The angel and bride

    The angel and bride

    The theme this year was white. Dahlia was an angel. Monti wanted to be
    an ice princess but settled on wearing the bride costume I brought
    home with full intentions of adapting it to be an ice princess. I
    found out later that Gwendolyn, Monti’s cousin, was an ice princess this
    year back in Chicago.