Audrey Claire Koch

Yep, thats her name. Done deal. She will no longer be BabyGirl on all of the name tags and documents at Egleston.

Today was a big day in quite a few ways. It started out with Amanda and I agreeing on the name Audrey for her. We were down to a few that we really liked a lot and were having a tough time pulling the trigger on picking one of the three. Amanda finally got me to buy into the notion of looking at the meaning of a name and we loved the meaning behind Audrey being 'Noble Strength'.

When I got there this morning to see how she was doing, she was really just about the same as when I left last night. Her heart was still beating in the 2:1 heart block rhythm and they had gone up on her lidocain level once again. Her blood pressure remained good and she was eating fine. I know I have never gone into any real specifics on this blog and always been relatively vague about what Audrey is facing. That was partly because they couldnt accurately diagnose anything until she was out and they could do an EKG on her heart which was impossible within Amanda. It was also partly because we were always hoping for things to change for the better on their own. The reason she has the 2:1 block rhythm is because she has what is referred to as a Long QT interval in her heart's electrical system caused by abnormal heart cell structures. The QT interval is the time it takes the heart from polarization to repolarization, from when it beats once to charge back up and beat again. This delayed repolarization causes her atria to beat twice before the ventrical is ready to beat. When you look at her heartrate on the monitors it is around 60 because it is only picking up the slower ventricular rate whereas the atria rate is actually beating at twice that speed. Luckily her heart is physically fine so she gets a good squeeze and her blood pressure is remaining fine but the long QT interval makes her predisposed to very fast heart rhythms as we saw early on that landed Amanda at Northside.

I was able to pick Amanda up from Northside and Madeline met us there with Avery so we could all go visit Audrey together. It was super emotional for Amanda to get to see her and the Dr's made an exception to the rule forbidding not being able to hold the baby with the belly button IV and let Amanda hold and feed her. Both Avery and Madeline were able to come in separately also as they only allow two visitors bedside in the CICU at a time. It was awesome for them all to get to see her, touch her, and hold her as I have gotten to the past couple of days.

During Amanda's visit we did talk with the electrophysiologist and and cardiac surgeon and they highly recommended going ahead and inserting a pacemaker to help her rhythm. They really want to treat the Long QT with beta blockers also but with her low heartrate they cannot because it will slow it down further. Adding the pacer will balance out the beta blockers treatment and keep the rhythm moving along, hopefully back at 1:1. We are currently scheduled for the surgery on Thursday afternoon and it will take 24-48 hours recovery there in the CICU. They describe the procedure as being relatively simple and quick and are confident about the benefits we'll see short and long term. The electrophysiologist expressed a lot of confidence that Audrey is going to do well through this surgery and in the long run also.

Amanda will be leaving Northside tomorrow finally but we'll be heading straight over to Egleston to both be there for this surgery. The kids and I ( and Madeline with how much she has been here) are thrilled to get her out of Northside and free again.

I'll try to post some pics tomorrow.

- Mark