Slow it down

Here’s a great blog entry by Ambulance Driver about calming down, taking control, and getting the job done. AD even uses one of my favorite quotes: “Slow is smooth; and smooth is fast.”

Modern medical technology allows doctors to monitor an unborn child – Dr. Milazzo’s presentation at the CHD Symposium was about Fetal Echocardiography – and hopefully the child will develop normally and have a healthy birth. But every so often the doctor has to deliver bad news: There could be a problem with your child’s heart; we need to do some further testing.

It’s a devastating event, but consider yourself (and your child) lucky. There is time to study the problem, figure out what is going on, and come up with a plan of action. When I was born there was no warning: I got here on Tuesday and my doctors realized there was a problem on Friday. I got three days of “normal” – and then things went haywire. But you have time to set your house in order, because you know the storm is coming.

Suddenly, a lot of people are going to become interested in you and your child, trying to figure out exactly what is going on and the best way to deal with it. Right now is the time to become proactive – get involved, learn what your physician’s  current thinking is, and become familiar with their plans. Start studying, learn the medical terms, get educated.

No matter what you are doing, there are always certain steps that must be followed. Everyone has their own variation of a spaghetti recipe, but no matter what it is, you must put the noodles in the pot. Your doctors have studied all the echos and test reports and hopefully they have developed a plan. Learn the plan. Know it as well as your doctors do. Break it down into individual steps if you need to: The first thing we need to do is A. Then we’ll do B. Depending on what the results of B are, we can do either C or D.

Stay cool, and keep your head.

Tags: Birth Defect, Calm, Cardiology, CHD, Congenital Heart Defect, Congenital Heart Disease, Fetal Echo, neonatal