Another Echo...

We're sorry for the lack of updates since we've been home. We would love to say that it's because we've been enjoying our happy little boy, but we haven't had a happy boy yet. We've spent the past several days trying to figure out why Matthew has been so incredibly fussy and irritable. We've been a little surprised by this because we've heard so many stories about how happy hypoplastic heart babies are after their Stage 2 surgery.

We waited to call his Doctors for a few days hoping (and praying very hard) that it would subside but it didn't so Amy made the call to his pediatrician today and she squeezed Matthew into her (she's very good to us) busy afternoon. Her first thought was that he may be reacting to the increase in his Clonidine medication from 50 mcg's to 100 mcg's (they did this right after surgery). Some of you may recall we had an "incident" with this medication during another stay in the hospital when his Clonidine patch was increased from 50 mcg's to 150 mcg's and he nearly stopped breathing on us. Her argument made sense to us. Before having us reduce the patch size, his pediatrician decided that she needed to talk to Matthew's cardiologist first. She called us back at 7:00 PM tonight (did I mention she's good to us?) to say that Matthew's cardiologist didn't think it was the Clonidine, but could possibly be an illness called pericarditis.

Pericarditis is caused by inflammation of the lining around the heart (pericardium), which results in an accumulation of fluid around the heart (pericardial effusion). Apparently it's not uncommon for pericardial effusion to result following heart surgery in children.

Matthew's Cardiologist asked that we bring Matthew in tomorrow morning for another Echo (yuck!). They should be able to tell through the Echo if the lining is inflamed or if there is fluid around his heart.

So, here we are again, asking for prayers for our little boy. We're really hoping that after the Echo the Cardiologist will tell that he thinks it's just too much Clonidine after all. That would be an easy fix. We would just tear off one patch and put on another.