Savanna has been really active and learning new things over the last month!  She is practicing putting shoes on and zipping her coat!  She is also talking a lot more – sometimes just babbling, sometimes words just come out like “CLEAN” and “EGG” and then we never hear them again? Her favorite new word is “DOWN” watch the video on the link: https://photos.app.goo.gl/WaaGdDYibRg6tp2H6

Savanna has also been experiencing high blood pressures, likely due to many factors including damage to the kidneys and many medications that cause high blood pressure. The echo showed that the muscles of her heart are thickened especially in her left ventricle (the chamber that pumps blood to the rest of her body). It was mildly thickened in her last echo in September, but has gotten thicker since then. The right side of her heart is normal in thickness (the side that pumps to her lungs). They see this with hypertension, high blood pressure over time and means her heart is feeling the high blood pressure. The thickening can mean that her high blood pressure has been fairly constant and a sign that we should increase her blood pressure medicines so we can reverse the thickening of her heart. The echo can help us see the impact of her high blood pressures, even if sometimes her blood pressures are okay and sometimes they are high at home. This can be reversible and should improve as we get blood pressures in better control.