I am so excited! Today I received the Tucson Lifestyle Magazine, which featured Arianna in the American Heart Assocation section. The article is below.
Look at how cute she looks!
This is what the article reads:
Arianna West
Vanessa West was in her 17th week of pregnancy and just 21 years old when doctors gave her the news no expectant t mother wants to hear: her baby would require surgery soon after birth due to a congenital heart defect. What Vanessa quickly learned is that congenital heart defects are the most common type of major birth defects, afflicting 30,000 babies born each year. Her daughter Arianna West was born with Tetralogy of Fallot, a condition that includes a hole between the ventricles, and many levels of obstruction from the right ventricle to the lungs, known as pulmonary stenosis. Cardiologists waited until Arianna was six months old before repairing her tiny heart. Although Arianna’s heart continues to function, the one-year-old will eventually need another surgery to repair her heart’s valves. Vanessa, grateful for all the medical research that has allowed Arianna to live, remains hopeful that new research will help her daughter grow into a happy, healthy adult.
1 comment:
Vanessa,
Arianna looks adorable in the photo, what a nice little feature. OK, I'll try to answer your questions: Bilal has been on Periactin for 2 months, we were supposed to start it 1 mg once a day at bedtime, then increase it to twice a day, so that he would get over the sedating effect. 1 mg is a lower end dose. I actually kept him on it once a day for a whole month before doing it morning and evening. It seems to have stimulated his appetite, but we still have down days. He doesn't get sleepy with it now. It does have some potential cardiac effects, but remember that Bilal's heart is repaired, and his PC said that functionally and structurally it is as close to "normal" as it could be for a child with CHD. His PS is mild and insufficiency is mild to moderate at most. I believe most of his feeding problems stem from months and months of symptomatic reflux, and now on Prevacid he hasn't had significant reflux symptoms for probably more than a month. He still pukes easily and retches some, but not like before. Also, he really seems to be 'lazy' when it comes to chewing, as well as having a small appetite. On the same lines as Periactin, you may have heard that the AAP has pretty much outlawed the use of cough and cold preparations in infants and toddlers due to potential risks. I don't know if Periactin comes under that group, but it IS an antihistamine, so it's something to be cautious about. That said, all meds have potential risks and we use them if the benefits outweigh them.
An umbilical hernia can spontaneously close up to about 5 years of age, so usually doesn't need to be repaired.
Hope this helps!
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