Evan's Heart and Hip

Here I am complaining about my situation, and then I take a look at my son:

EKG

Echocardiogram

Pavlik Harness

I'll explain.

Recently Evan started having episodes of supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) where his heart rate gets really high--like 280 beats per minute. At first they were sporadic, short-lived, and he came out of them on his own. The docs tested his electrolytes and gave him an echocardiogram and EKG. Everything came back normal so they decided to postpone treatment. Then when I came in 2 days ago I found out he had a 15 minute episode of SVT and didn't come out of it until ice was placed on his forehead. All day he continued having short SVTs. His nurse had to encourage him out of them with ice or by shoving a tube down his throat. It was not looking good. She called in the Docs. They called in Cardiology. They hooked Evan up to a 12-lead EKG to track one of his episodes. They did another test of his electrolytes. Everything still looked normal except that he's still having these SVTs. The docs decided to start Evan on a heart medication and he has not had a single SVT since.

Next:

Evan has a dislocated left hip which is fairly commonly associated with Spina Bifida. He gets to wear this lovely skydiving suit that puts his hip closer to the socket in hopes of relocating the hip. Right now he wears it for 12 hours on/12 hours off. When we go home he'll wear it for 22 hours a day. When he's 4 weeks old we'll have a follow-up hip ultrasound to see if the hip is relocated. If it's not relocated, Evan will get a more rigid cast of some sorts to make sure his hip is in place correctly. Super annoying, yes, but it's nice that this is a fixable problem and it's definitely better to fix his hip while he can't walk anyway.

The good news is amidst all these new complications...Evan is eating!! No tube feeds for almost 2 days. Go Evan!