May 6, 2010

The Blood Pressure Saga Continues...

Bertrand on a walk with his great-aunt Shirley today!

Bertrand's pediatrician appointment was interesting yesterday. His blood pressure kept reading as very high in the office. To give you an idea, Bertrand's blood pressure was 152/82 and the high range for his age, height and weight is 105/65-75. Yeeeaaah.

This blood pressure was taken while he was sleeping, but having a lot of jerky movements, which can distort the reading. So we were given two days to get sleeping blood pressures for Bertrand before putting him on blood pressure medication and/or reducing the ACTH.

Guess what we got last night?

113/87! We were pretty excited by how low this was! This was taken on his ankle, and any leg blood pressure measurement is about 10 points higher than that from the inner elbow. Correcting for this would put the values at 103/77. Not bad, huh? :)

All in all, Bertrand is still very irritable and hungry, but his great-aunt Shirley and aunt Jess helped to distract him by going on walks... in the snow. Yes, it was snowing in May! (But fortunately it didn't accumulate.)

Jess and Shirley are driving across the country so Jess can start her nursing program at Johns Hopkins! We are all so proud of her! She unpacked her stethoscope just to take Bertrand's blood pressure. :) And, Shirley gave Bertrand multiple walks and single handedly finished curtains for our bedroom while B was napping! The energy of these two ladies is amazing! They need to drive through Utah more often. :)

1 comment :

  1. Man, it sure is a bumpy ride, isn't it? Hope you have your seatbelts on. :) *hugs*

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