From Two to Five in Nine Months! Ok, 27 Weeks and 3 days...: Updates on Tony and the Cardiologist and Brielle and the Gastroenterologist

Tony and the Cardiologist

Tony had his meeting with the cardiologist today and instead of having a stress test done, he had an echocardiogram (ECHO) done because on his routine pre-op physical he was found to have ECG (different test than ECHO) abnormalities including upside down t waves in one of the, as he understands it, limb leads which may just be a physiological variant. However, with infarction, or ischemia, the t-waves should be symmetrical and inverted and these are not. We're just waiting on the results of the ECHO for further information. The preliminary thought by the cardiologist is something called Athletic Heart Syndrome in which the heart is enlarged because of significant amounts of exercise, over an hour a day, which Tony usually does, actually, when he can sneak out twice a day he does. He used to work out closer to 2 to 3 hours a day pre-preemies. The ECG abnormality may be a sign of Brugada syndrome which, if it is type I, could be severe, type II, not so much...

Not to be confused with the Borgata in Atlantic City

Although he will probably be cleared for surgery on his micro discectomy between L4 and L5 on the right side, it looks like surgery may have to be canceled or at least postponed because of the limitations that would be placed on him. He would not be able to lift anything greater than a milk jug (8 pounds) for at least 2 weeks and it could be up to 4 to 6 weeks. He might not be able to drive in that time as well. It's simply unreasonable at this time for that restriction, and he enjoys being married. Since he's been preparing for the surgery he's switched from anti-inflammatories, the COX inhibitors like Ibuprofen to Acetaminophen only and he's had bouts of pain, especially in the middle of the night as the discs fill with fluid, and he has to feed the girls from either a kneeling, a knee down or standing position, but he's been tweaking the dosages and can sometimes get by on 1600 mg, well below the 4000 mg max. He'll keep trying for the next two months to help that back heal by doing things that create extension rather than flexion, it seems the swimming from the tri-training is actually helping stretch the back quite a bit, he's now comfortably under 8 minutes in the 500 yard time trials and close to 30 minutes in the mile swim, won't see him in London this year, not that he would be allowed to leave for that long, but the swimming may be the thing that saves him.

We'll keep you up to date on the ECHO results.

3/15/12 10:53 AM ECHO comes up normal. Tony's heart is normal. Sure there's a joke in here somewhere.

Brielle and the Gastroenterologist and Pulmonologist
At 11:59 pm Tony finished feeding Brielle about 5 ounces since she has her scope tomorrow (today) morning at 7 am. Well, 7 am check-in for a 9 am appointment. Hopefully Brielle can handle not eating for 9 hours, it will be a bit tough on her, but we really need to figure out what the heck makes her arch so badly. Hopefully they can find something that can be easily fixed or treated. We'll keep you up to date on that as well.

Brielle will also meet with the pulmonologist to review her condition and most likely she'll be on the oxygen for another six months. The little peanut/piglet (not because she's fat, because she eats twice as much as the other girls) needs to have stronger lungs and we've seen some changes these last couple of days where she seems much more aware, the arching is not quite as bad and she's, for lack of a better word, playing with you or her sisters.

Brielle came back from her endoscopy, everything looked normal, biopsy results will come in about a week. Here are some pics.