We are just starting to digest some news re Lydia. The nurses were struggling to get some of their measurements from the sensors attached to Lydia yesterday and suspected the equipment. They tried new sensors, but got the same readings. This lead them to look in more detail. They arranged a heart scan early this morning and they have diagnosed a condition called "coarctation of the aorta", this appears to be basically a tight narrowing of the main artery coming from the heart (the aorta). This has only just come to light as apparently babies have other plumbing in their heart from being in the womb which closes down some time after birth. This appears to have happened with Lydia yesterday and when the systems switched over the readings went awry. This condition needs surgery urgently, but she is still about her birth weight (1.09Kg - small!). They generally need babies to be at least 2.5Kg prior to surgery, which they do in Bristol. She has since had another scan and the paediatric cardiologist confirms the condition. She also has a hole in the heart, but this is not the immediate priority, as either that will fix itself, or is something that can be looked at when Lydia is a bit older.What they are trying to do now is give her some drugs in an attempt to re-open the closed-down "baby artery" to give her a back-up supply in case she gets poorly while they try and bulk her up. On her current schedule, this would be expected to take at least 6-weeks before they would consider surgery, unless they need to act in an emergency. One side affect of these drugs can mean that she could stop breathing, so they will be monitoring her closely and ventilating her if required. If the drugs don’t re-open the baby valve, then they may need to give her beater blockers, to presumably control her blood pressure.
Phoebe doesn’t appear to be exhibiting the same symptoms, but we are hoping they will proactively scan her to rule out the same problem over the next few days.
They've both got a bit of jaundice for good measure, but that's the least of our concerns at the moment!
We are again totally at the mercy of God, and acknowledge that of ourselves we can do nothing. Our prayer is that God would continue with her and give her even more of the fighting spirit that she has exhibited this far, after all, she's a Bodger!!!
