Well, Mom was right. Amy took Matthew into the cardiologist office this afternoon to double check his oxygen saturation and unfortunately our machine at home was accurate. We took this picture a few days ago and you can see Matthew's saturation on the left (68) and his heart rate on the right (134). The day after we took this picture his saturation started dropping and has been running in the low 60's and upper 50's for the past 2 days.Thankfully, Matthew's cardiologist came in to check Matthew over while we were there this afternoon and he felt that Matthew looked very cyanotic. He decided that Matthew should have the catheterization within the next few days, but he also thought that Matthew may be coming down with a cold (which would be his first) so they scheduled the heart cath for next Tuesday to give the cold time to run it's course. Amy just took Matthew's temperature and it's running 100.6 so he may indeed have a cold or he may be reacting to the RSV vaccine he received today.
What does this all mean? We're scared as usual. This is all happening too fast. Not just for our state of mind, but Matthew may be too young and too little for his stage 2 surgery. They would really prefer to wait until he's closer to the 6 month end of the 4 to 6 month range they usually perform this surgery in. He won't be 4 months for another 3 weeks.
This heart cath will be diagnostic and will be used to determine when they will need to do surgery and what they will need to do when he has it. If the heart cath shows that Matthew is outgrowing his shunt, but the pressure in his lungs is too high they will operate to replace the existing shunt rather than actually performing the stage 2 surgery which involves disconnecting the superior vena cava and reconnecting it to his pulmonary artery. When the doctor mentioned this we immediately said NO. We've heard too many sad stories where they added an operation between the first and second stages swapping the existing shunt for a larger one because they didn't think the baby was ready for the stage 2 surgery.
Please continue to pray for our family. Matthew is still very smiley and is almost always in a good mood. Amy and I feel like we could just throw up tonight.
2 comments:
I know life is harder than anyone can imagine right now, but just know that you always have friends and family that are constantly praying for matthew and you guys. Like you said, God is in control, and whatever he decides is what is best. You have come a long way since the first surgery and even if the second surgery comes sooner rather than later, it will all be OK! Matthew made it through the fist surgery with flying colors, as he will pull through the second surgery the same. I have hope! Take care & Hang in there! We'll keep praying!!!!!
Great work.
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