Thankfully, we haven't had much to update you all on for a while. Our lives have been filled with wonderfully ordinary events. For that, we give all of the praise to the Lord. Today we had our much anticipated cardiology check up. I tried to condense his update into a short Facebook post, but I just can't. I think that blogging these updates help me as much as anyone else process the new information we receive.
Going into this appointment we had no idea what to expect. We know that he will require one more surgery, but we still don't have a definite plan for when that will happen. We were hoping that today would give us some insight into when to expect his 3rd surgery.
When we arrived, Mac was the perfect little patient as we measured his weight, height, oxygen saturation, and blood pressure. Because he usually HATES the EKG stickers, we decided to wait until after the echo to do it. We wanted to keep him happy until after his echo. That is the most important part of his visit. When the ultrasound tech came to pick him up he asked Mac if he liked Cars. For the first time ever he happily followed him to the room to watch the movie. He laid down on the table without any resistance, and completely relaxed. He laid there and let the tech get every image he needed and then some. After an extensive echo-cardiogram, we finally met with the cardiologist.
We started with changes to his medication. We don't have any major changes. We are just increasing his blood pressure medicine by a little bit. He said it is just due to his growth, not that there are any major concerns with is blood pressure.
After that, Dr. Horne shared with us about what he saw on the echo. He said that this time he noticed that there is some increased "turbulence" as the blood travels across his heart. Mac's oxygenated blood has to cross from the left to the right in order to go back out into his body. The increase in "turbulence" can mean an increase in pressure on the lungs. Before his first surgery he had too much pressure going into his lungs, but now the pressure in his heart is causing pressure from the other direction, or back pressure. This change prompted some discussion about our next steps. He feels like we might want to go ahead and have a heart catheterization to measure this pressure and possibly open the passageway in his heart a little more to make that crossover a little easier. He said that with him being so close to his surgery weight this might also push us to going ahead and doing surgery. He decided that the best option was to talk to Mac's surgeon and get his thoughts. He will be contacting Dr. Bradley soon and they will make a decision on our next steps.
We hope to hear something in the next few weeks. I am thinking, based on the direction our conversation went, that the heart cath in March is a pretty sure bet. The summer surgery is still up in the air. That will depend on how Mac grows and what they find when they do the cath. I will share as soon as we know more.
While we wait, please pray for their decision making to be guided by the Holy Spirit. Please pray that we will be able to continue to keep Mac healthy and strong.
