Oh the Stress and Then Comes Happiness.......

Yesterday Andy and I took Rhett up to the Children's Hospital for a sedated Echocardiogram on his heart and to see the cardiologist. We were both basket cases all morning. Given Rhett's history, and just the fact that this same hospital overdosed him 5 months ago, nearly causing his death, was enough to never want them to give him any type of drug again. Let alone sedate him.

But it had to be done, and it is the only place to have it done. No matter what mistakes were made by 2 different careless nurses, this is the same hospital that has saved his life more than once, so Andy and I kind of have a love hate type of realtionship with it.

Well we get up there go off for a chest xray, come back and meet with the Nurse Practitioner, and the Doctor that is going to be taking care of him. It does not help my nerves any when this Doctor tells me that they are nervous putting him under, and that there will be more people in the room than normal...."Just in case." WE go over his history, which takes well over an hour, far longer than it should for a little boy who is not quite 2 yet.

I warn them that he has bradychardia (abnormally low heart rate) while in a deep sleep, and they thank me for that bit of info.(Don't want to start chest compressions if a low heart rate is normal!!!) The IV team comes in, pokes our little fella and makes him scream. Daddy holds him for a bit and he is all better, other than the fact that he is ticked that he can't use his hand now.

They come and get us and take us to the "room." I am so wound up on emotions by now that I can hardly handle myself. They get him all hooked up so that they can monitor his heart rate, blood pressure, breaths per minute, and oxygen saturation levels. Andy holds him and they play with some toys while the Doctor gives him his first dose of Versed, then comes the Ketamine, and then the Nubain.

Not too long after that he starts to get woozy, and then just konks right out. We sit in this little tiny room with a TON of people. Which include....The tech doing the Echo, the nurse watching his vitals, the Nurse Practitioner, The Doctor, a Cardiologist, and Andy and myself.

After he received all of the meds to knock him out, and I can see that he is fine, and received the right dose, I breathe a small sigh of relief. We sit in that crowded room, for about an hour and a half while she does the Echo. I am not quite sure why it took so long. Then we had to sit for another hour and a half while they reviewed it to make sure that they had all of the right pictures.

Then we went up to recovery for another hour, where I might add that for the first time ever after being given a sedation med, he DID NOT require any extra oxygen. He sat there and drank a ton of pedialyte, and watched TV for a bit. He was totally out of it, and did not want anyone touching him, other than mommy or daddy.

After hanging out in recovery for a while we finally went back down to cardiology to meet with his cardiologist. We spent a while talking about how Rhett has been doing. I discussed the ENT that we had seen and how he was grumpy to say the least about us not wanting to take Rhett's tonsils out. I gave him my reasoning, and he said that he could see why I would not want to subject him to that.

We discussed the CPAP, I told him that it was slowly coming along. Then he listened to Rhett. He said that he could hear what sounded like a small VSD (hole in the heart) , which he grinned and said that it meant that his pressures in his lungs had gone down, causing the patch in his heart to leak a bit.

Then he looks at the results and says yep, His gradient (which is how they measure the pressures in the lungs) had gone down from 58 in February, which is a pretty bad case of pulmonary hypertension, to 32 which is NORMAL!!!!!!

Now he was on oxygen while they got that pressure, but even without the oxygen, his gradient was 42, which is very mild. We were hoping for the pressures to go down, but never did we expect him to get them down within the NORMAL range.

The cardiologist was cautiously optimistic that we would be able to come off of all meds and oxygen within the next year. How cool would that be? For those of you that don't know about Pulmonary Hypertension, the outcome of it, is usually pretty grim. There is no cure, and it can significantly alter a life span. With Rhett's pressures being NORMAL, this is truly a miracle.

The combination of the meds, oxygen, and CPAP have all worked. Now if we can just get that stupid machine paid for, all will be good.

Yesterday was a huge roller coaster ride of emotions for us, but the outcome was worth it. Finally after months and months of bad news we were able to get feeling of reassurance that all of these doctors that we go see, and fork out our hard earned money to, are really making a difference in our sons health. That makes it ALL worth it.

I just wish that we didn't have to fight so hard for everything all the time. It can be so exhausting.

Thank you for sharing in our joy.

Oh, and here are some picts that I took before and after his Echo.....

Trying to dive off of the exam table......


I asked him to give Cookie a love, he is looking at him.....


Going in for the love.......


Ta Da.......we have loves for Cookie Monster.....


And here he is in recovery looking a little out of it. The Nurse even found him a Cookie Monster Blue blanket to cuddle with and take home. She picked it out special just for him, because she knew that he loved Cookie so much.