We went for dinner and a play date at some friends house. After Tuesday night's episode we've decided to check Sweet Pea’s heart rate at each diaper change. Around 7:00pm I changed her diaper and her heart rate sounded fine. She was pretty cranky and wanting to eat but not eating much again so I kind of knew something was up. We got home about 9:00pm and put her on the changing table and checked her heart rate again and it was racing again. So off to the ER, another 10+ pokes and the two doses of Adenosine later she was converted. They decided to send us via ambulance back downtown since this was the 3rd episode in 3 weeks. We spent another 3 days at the U of M Children's hospital. They increased her dose of Sotalol again.
The only issue with that is that the other problem that can be caused by this medicine is a long QT interval which can cause torse de pointes, another type of arrhythmia that is even more dangerous.
Basically, the QT interval is the time it takes for the heart to charge in-between beats. For example, when you see someone get shocked on tv it takes time for the paddles to recharge between shocks. In the heart this process occurs naturally and the time it takes to recharge between shocks (or beats in a normal heart) is the QT interval.
The last EKG before we left Tuesday showed a QT interval of 500 to 510 and they said she can safely have one up to 515. So if she has another episode we'll be talking different medications or a combination of medications.
We've decided to go to the Mayo for a second opinion just to be sure we are doing everything we can. Our appointment there is Friday March 23rd, I'll add an update after that appointment.
Please pray that we can at least stay episode free for some time. Her cardiologist said the short term goal is two weeks without an episode and the ultimate goal is to have an episode no more than every 3 months. I just pray that we can get there and fast, I don't know how much more a mommy can watch her baby go through this! God gives us the strength we need; I just need to rely on that now.
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