7/27/11

We had a meeting with our team of Doctors today. We had hoped they would be talking to us about going home, but that didn't happen. They said they didn't feel comfortable sending Max home with his breath-holding spells. They had performed an ECHO on Monday, and results from that showed an increased pressure across his pulmonary valve. They are going to do another ECHO tomorrow morning, in which I will be there to help induce a breath-holding spell, so that they can see what his heart does while he is having a spell. They think there is a possibility that there is blood shunting from the right to the left side of his heart, through the ASD that they left partially open during his heart surgery. Or the increased pressure at the pulmonary artery may be increasing the pressure in his lungs with constriction of the vessels...or something to that effect. If it is one of these two possibilities, they will treat it and see if it helps with the spells, or at least how he reacts to the spells. In a normal child's breath hold spells, the child may turn colors and possibly pass out, then start breathing again. With Max, because he doesn't have enough oxygen reserve, he desaturates quicker, and when the heart is not receiving enough oxygen, it could stop pumping. Obviously we don't want this to happen, so we are hoping that they can find more answers tomorrow.