Sunday, October 9, 2011

Here we go again....

The past three weeks have been C.R.A.Z.Y!!! Matthew ended up being in the hospital from Tuesday September 26th- through September 30th. We also had four doctor appointments last week and I had to make 5 trips to Primary Children's. Matt and I have decided we need a smart car as a commuter car to and from the hospital :) While in the hospital, Matthew received 6 doses of Solumedrol and an IVIG to help get on top of the rejection we've been fighting for the past two months. His heart rate is still abnormally high for his age group and compared to what his normal was before all of this began. Because of this, and the fact that there are still some concerns on his echo, we are doing a full heart catheterization and another biopsy tomorrow. They will be looking at both sides of the heart and looking at Matthew's coronary arteries to rule out coronary artery disease. A lot of people have asked me what a "cath" or catheterization is. Basically, an interventional cardiologist threads a wire through a blood vessel in his neck or groin to get access to Matthew's heart. They measure all the pressures, and are able to see things during a catheterization that they can't see on echocardiogram. They also take a piece of the heart for pathology to study to determine whether or not Matthew is in rejection. The pathologists are able to grade the rejection to let us know how severe the rejection is and what type of rejection is occurring.
So, big day tomorrow!! I have a little more anxiety going into tomorrow than I have had with past heart catheterizations. Almost three weeks ago during his last cath Matthew's heart stopped. We still are not clear as to the reasons why this occured. I think we were lucky in the fact that they were able to resuscitate Matthew quickly- still scary though!! I hope things go smoothly tomorrow and that we can get some answers about what is going on.
Thank you for your continued prayers and support. This has been a seemingly endless trial. We are grateful for each of you- we could not do this without you!

2 comments:

  1. We hope everything goes well for you guys tomorrow. Thanks for the updates. Good luck!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Chrissy: you, Matthew, and your family have been in our thoughts all day today. You are our heart-baby heroes. I cannot even begin to imagine how hard it has been these last few days. Thank you so much for the updates both here and on FB :). I just wish I could bring you an avacado smoothie right now.

    ReplyDelete