Finally...Another Update

Sorry it's been so long since I updated. It seemed like the new information has been coming slowly. We spent almost all day last Sunday in the ER again, getting David's seizure medication changed because he was having an allergic reaction to the Dilantin. Once we got that all straightened out his itching and dizziness has improved a lot.

Thursday David has his cath. The information we got from that test is about what we thought they'd find out. They did studies on the pressures in his heart, and they looked o.k. When he had his surgery in 2004 they left hole in his heart, they call it a fenestration (sp?) to allow his body to get used to the new way that his blood would flow. During the cath they wanted to close the hole so that his oxygen level would increase even more. Currently his oxygen saturation runs about 92-93 and with the hole closed it would run about 97-98. They closed it for about 20 minutes and then decided that it wasn't a good idea. With the problems that his heart is having with rhythm it would just be too risky. The doctors are hoping that after he gets a pace maker and his heart is beating correctly they will be able to close the hole. The study has also shown that his heart function has declined, but they are also hoping that this is because of the irregular heartbeats. The hope is that with a pace maker, his heart function could improve.

The other part of the cath was the electro-physiology study. With this test they were trying to find a place inside his heart to pace it. David said that in the procedure they would get it working and then lose it shortly after. The doctors told us that they were not able to pace his heart like they would a normal heart (I don't think they were expecting this to be possible anyways). He is going to have to have a more complicated surgery to put the pace maker in. We think that the surgery is going to happen on Wednesday. Of course it has to be the first day of school, not to mention the first day that Charlie will go to the Spanish Immersion school and Katie's first day of Kindergarten. We are very lucky that the kids have such great Aunts that be taking care of them. They'll have to take lots of pictures for us!

David feels pretty good, he still hasn't recovered completely from the initial problems a couple of weeks ago. He says that he's just more tired and he can tell that his slow heartbeat is taking a toll on him. He's adjusting to the medicine a little better each day. We sure appreciate everybody's prayers and concern. Without our family and friends we couldn't make it through these trials. Thanks for everything.