Miss K is 2 Years Old

Very bitter sweet.  I am so proud of my baby girl for hitting her 2nd birthday and doing so well in the past year!  Of course I am happy she is growing and changing into a beautiful little girl.  But I am so sad to see the baby leave and the little girl come.  She has been our "baby girl" for 2 years, we still call her baby girl around here, but in the past few weeks she has changed a lot in many ways, not only does she no longer act like a baby but she also no longer looks like a baby.  She has completely lost the baby looks and gained the little girl looks, but of course she is still adorable.

Miss K now weighs 20.4 pounds and is 33.4 inches tall.

She is doing great!  We have now made it almost 8 months SVT free, a very amazing big deal for Miss K.  The most amazing part is the 2 fevers she has endured and made it through with no SVT, her heart rate barely went up enough for us to even notice a faster rhythm than normal.  She has also made it through not 1 but 2 missed doses of Propanolol and had absolutely NO SVT, quite the change from her normal SVT episodes within 24 hours of the missed dose!  I posted about missing a dose just before July 24th but I have yet to mention the next missed dose...just this past weekend while visiting her grandparents, Daddy was out of town and Mommy was quite tired and distracted and somehow completely forgot the morning dose of both Propanolol and Digoxin, I didn't realize I had missed them until around 1:30PM, yes that's right it took clear until afternoon and around the time for her usual 2nd dose for the day before I realized we had missed her morning dose.  I opted to just consider the Propanolol afternoon dose skipped and gave her what would have been her normal morning dose at that time, then at bedtime I gave her her evening dose of both.  I worried that since we had missed a dose barely a week before that she would have SVT from this missed dose but I was pleasantly surprised to never catch any SVT :o).  I know without a doubt her EP Cardiologist is going to love hearing this news.

Miss K is our amazingly mischievous little princess.  She is into every kind of mischief possible, things her older brother never would have dreamed up doing she is quick to discover and is great at making Mommy go completely nuts throughout the day.  She is very active and very fast, before I can get one mess of hers cleaned up she is making/into another mess.  She is adorably lovable and full of snuggly hugs.  She loves to be snuggled and loved on, when she's not too busy anyway.  She is a princess without a doubt.  She loves to play dress up, take care of her baby dolls, have her nails painted, have Mommy put eye shadow on her, wear jewelry, have her hair done, were hair bows and flowers, she absolutely loves to wear dresses, and her favorite and most preferred color is PINK.

Bradycardic Episodes Update...

We finally got a call from Miss K's EP Cardiologist, it took a few days because of our state holiday and then I was out of town and outside of mobile service so I didn't get to speak with him directly, I just received the message this afternoon.  The Holter Monitor reading came in and he looked through it thoroughly, Miss K does indeed drop her heart rate to the low 50's very occasionally but never for more than a second or so, he said the longest her heart rate was in the 50's was about 1.3 seconds and her average heart rate was 92 BPM.  This is all good, everything he expects to see in a child taking 2 Beta Blockers.

I am relieved to hear that she is OK and no SVT was caught with the monitor either, such a huge relief!

As of right now she is to stay on the same 3.2 mL 3x daily Propanolol and 1.2 mL 2x daily Digoxin.  She will be seeing him in September for a follow up, I am a bit disappointed to be taking her in since I had hoped to stay away from a visit for a year but her EP Cardiologist feels he should see her at the 6 month mark to see how things are going and talk about future medication changes.  He likes to have a game plan and it's time to talk about what we need to do in the future.

On a side note, last week with all the craziness of packing to go on a family camping trip I completely forgot to issue Miss K's afternoon dose of Propanolol Tuesday.  We waited on egg shells the next few days, while camping, expecting an SVT episode because she has always had SVT after skipping a dose, I was terrified of being out in the middle of nowhere with no cell phone service and 30 minutes from the nearest hospital knowing that we had skipped a dose and SVT was possibly inevitable.  We checked her heart rate constantly throughout the week and weekend and were extremely shocked to never catch any SVT!  I am amazed at how far our sweet little girl has come.  She is doing so great and kicking her PJRT in the butt :).

And while camping I noticed at least 1 new molar coming in, this means the cause of her tired moments and off times was most likely teething, I'm so glad to have found a reason for her to have been acting out of sorts!

Our dirty little princess enjoying playing in the dirt while camping this past weekend.

18 Month Well Exam

Miss K had her 18 month well child check-up on February 15, yes that was about 2 weeks ago and I am very late updating about it lol.  Having a newborn plus 2 kids under age 4 has been crazy busy around here!

Miss K is weighing in at a tiny 18 pounds even and is just over 36 inches tall.  She may not weigh much but she sure looks pudgy!  She has rolls and dimples that Big Brother never had lol.  The Pediatrician was impressed with her, he's not a bit concerned with her weight, she's as healthy as can be (aside from her PJRT) and he doesn't feel there's any problem as of right now.  Everything else checked out perfectly.  And speaking of that little heart, thus far we have made it 2 months SVT free **Knock on wood** (lol).  She's had missed or 1/2 doses of her Propanolol a few times due to spitting it out for some odd reason, she's usually really great about swallowing it but on some rare occasions she will dribble it down her chin loosing some or all of the dose.  But these missed doses have not caused SVT (yay!).  She has also had crying fits with breath holding that we were sure would cause an episode but, thankfully, they have not yet.  And she loves to throw major tantrums, she kicks, screams, holds her breath, and throws herself down on the floor slamming her head down with all her body weight (thus making the tantrum worse because then she is also injured and screaming harder from that, go figure!), these tantrums always make us nervous as she gets herself so worked up her heart is racing and she is flushed from the exertion but her little heart keeps a normal rhythm never going much over 120 BPM during these fits.

Miss K has been on the same dosage of her medications since October 2012, nearly 6 months of no medication adjustments is so good for her!  But we have to keep in mind that she hasn't gained significant weight since the last medication adjustment so that's most likely the biggest factor in not needing more of one or the other.  So as of right now Miss K is taking 3mL Propanolol 3 times daily and 1.2mL Digoxin twice daily.

Miss K's next Cardiology appointment is in 1 week, March 12.  I'm excited to hear how the EP Cardiologist feels she is doing.  I am tempted to ask for a Holter monitor to see if she is having episodes we don't know about, I swear there have been a few times I have checked her heart with my hand or ear and it was surely in SVT but within the time it takes to grab a stethoscope her heart rate has changed and I have found that it is beating normal and fine, I really wonder if she is having episodes we don't catch and is converting out of them on her own, this would be a huge miracle for her since she has never in her 18 months of life converted out of SVT without a Physical Maneuver.  But I hope I am very wrong, all I ever hope for is for her to truly be SVT free and eventually outgrow her PJRT!

Somehow we have been able to all stay healthy since our bout of the Flu back in December, again **knock on wood**!  I hope we can all keep up this good health, it's nearly spring so flu and cold season should be coming to an end real soon.  With a newborn in the house I have been extra cautious, I am determined to keep him healthy!  RSV has been so bad this year I constantly fear any illness coming into our home and putting Little D in the hospital.  I am so grateful we are almost past that time of year.

I will be back with another Miss K update sometime next week, I'm sure it will be all great news from the EP Cardiologist :o).

Missed Dose...

Today, for the first time ever, I skipped a Propanolol dose :o(.  I feel like a horrible Mommy, I know it's because it's Mother's Day and my mind was more on myself and what I wanted to happen than on what needed to happen along with my plans...yes I believe I've been a bit selfish today and I don't feel bad about it except that I totally forgot to give Miss K her Propanolol this afternoon because I was in a hurry to get out the door following through with one of my plans to make my day awesome.  I remembered at 6:30 tonight when we got home from a beautiful canyon drive and I sat down to nurse her, that's when I always remember to give her medications because they're sitting right by the nursing chair.  It's considered a skipped dose because you cannot give doses closer than 6 hours and even though she doesn't take it every 8 hours on the dot anymore she's still supposed to take it at the same times every day...she takes it at 8:00am, 2:00pm and 9:30pm daily, this means at 6:30pm this evening we were only 3 hours from her usual final dose of the day :o(.  Yup, I feel like a horrible Mommy.

Now I'm going to stress for the next couple days about Miss K having break through SVT episodes, and I know if she has any it'll be because of the missed dose today, then I'll feel even more horrible :o(.

Though I do have to say I really don't think she'll have any issues missing this dose, it's only 1 she should be fine.  I am going to hope and pray that she really is fine...