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05/29/2002 Archived Entry: "Practicing Punctual Perinatologists"
We met with Dr. Kerry Lewis at Georgetown Hospital today.
Our appointment was for 9:30, and due to the unpredictability of traffic going into DC in the morning, we left at 7:30, and arrived around 8:40. At 9:15, a nurse came to find us in the waiting room and told us Dr. Lewis was running late. We were finally ushered into an office at 10:30.
We had the film from the 4/2 and 4/30 sonograms from Washington Radiology with us, which Dr. Lewis looked over. He said that to get a real handle on where things were at, he would have to take a look at the baby himself. He called the sonogram desk and secured us a spot for 11:30.
The question he was trying to answer was whether the pleural effusion was causing enough lung compromise to make it worth the risk of performing some form of in-utero operation.
During the sonogram:
1. He noted the CCAMs and the fluid.
2. he saw Ascites (the presence of excess fluid in the peritoneal cavity) in her abdomen — this had not appeared on any other sonogram. He said that this was a sign of possible heart problems.
3. He asked if Chrissy was diabetic because the baby is measuring big — for some measurements, the baby is measuring in at 32 weeks! We told him that yesterday she drank the glucose-laden flat orange soda at Dr. Match's office, and we should have the results tomorrow.
Based on what he saw, he thinks that we should go ahead and have a procedure whereby:
1. the baby would be temporarily paralyzed (via an agent introduced in the umbilical cord) to prevent movement during the procedure
2. a pig-tail catheter would be inserted into the baby between two of her ribs to drain the fluid
He wants to talk to a neonatologist and some of his other colleagues, and will get back to us tomorrow, or at the latest, Friday. He would really like to perform the procedure next week, and have us come in Monday for an explanation of the surgery and an introduction to the equipment that would be used.
We called Rhonda when we got home and told her what was going on, she said that she would try to put Dr. Hartman the pediatric surgeon in touch with Dr. Lewis so that Dr. Hartman could give his perspective on the baby's condition and the risks involved. We also decided to cancel tomorrow's scheduled sonogram, as it wouldn't have provided any more information than the one we had today. Our next sonogram is scheduled for June 11th.