It's been a while since I updated, so let me bring you up to speed. Luckily, nothing too exciting has gone on between my last update and now. Logan was sick in March, and we ended up at the cardiologists to make sure it wasn't anything respiratory, and it wasn't, thankfully. While at that appointment, we made another appointment, basically one to check up on him after his cold subsided, and before our one year appointment in July. We went to the follow up appointment on Friday.
Lately, Logan has learned how to crawl, which is just wonderful, he also pulls himself up and walks along furniture. He does amazing, and he IS amazing. Because of him moving more, he exerts more energy, therefore, needing to breathe faster to compensate for his already low oxygen levels. This in turn, makes him blue. His lips turn blue/purple, and his extremities get purple or ashy. Seeing this really brought it back for us. It is now in our face everyday, that our amazing boy, isn't as healthy as we pretend him to be. Its kind of like an out of sight, out of mind type of thing. It's no longer out of sight. So, of course, this has been a concern of ours. I planned on bringing it up at his appointment.
We arrive at the appointment, they do the routine check in, EKG,blood pressure, O2 levels, etc. As soon as they tried to obtain his o2 saturation level, I knew it wasn't going to be a quick appointment. Logan's o2 sat. is typically in the high 80's. 85-89. His number that popped up on Friday was 73. It fluctuated between 73-84. The doctors then ordered an Echo of his heart. Once this was completed, I was informed that his shunt, is in fact, becoming too small for him.
Logan weighs 24.5 lbs. He is in the 97% for weight amongst kids his age. Our doctor made sense of it to me like this, he is the size of an 18 month old. They need to look at him, and make their decisions based on that fact, and the fact that his heart is working as if he is 18 months old. We were told that he would make it past his first birthday before needing his next surgery, but when you think about it with this logic, his body is functioning like that of a year and a half old. All of this leads to the plan that it is time to move forward.
It is time to start planning for his next surgery. He will be going in on the 27 for a heart catheterization, where he is sedated and they insert a catheter into his artery in his thigh and run it up to his heart where it will take specific measurements of pressure, o2 levels, etc. He will also have an angiogram, where they insert a dye into his heart and use an x-ray camera to record the blood flow. This will give them and the surgeon a better idea of how his heart has grown and help them decide where they want to go from here. We were told it will go one of two ways, either he will go in, and only have his shunt replaced, or he will go in, have the shunt replaced, and they will continue with the big surgery. We will not know what their decision is until they have their conference after the heart cath is done.
I am assuming we will be back for surgery within the next couple of months. I was really looking forward to having his birthday at home, and I know we don't know for sure what is going on, but I have a feeling we won't be able to.
So, here we are and here we go.
