Update on Middle Man...

On Friday we went and saw Dr. Brumund. He ended up doing an EKG, echo and checking Christopher's O2 saturation levels. Christopher's pulmonary valve and tricuspid valve are still leaking and stenosed, but not significantly different from his last visit. Dr. Brumund does not think that is what is causing Christopher to be so exhausted. His O2 levels were lower than they've ever been since his surgery and his heart rate was significantly higher than it has been so he was sent home with a monitor to check for rhythm issues. We'll have those results later this week. I had mentioned how Christopher is still not sleeping through the night and waking up a lot! Dr. Brumund sent us to the Pediatric Pulunologist for him to check for sleep apnea.

Today Christopher and I met with the Pediatric Pulumologist and he said that Christopher does have sleep apnea. There could be many things causing it so we are going to do an overnight sleep study at their office to try and determine the cause. He mentioned that it could be something as minor as reflux...and we ALL remember Christopher's problems with reflux!!! It could also be heart related...we have a higher chance in that aspect too!! He also mentioned that it could be neurological. They'll place all kinds of wires on him and watch him sleep all night. Wow, what a fun job to watch people sleep in the middle of the night! :)

The Pediatric Pulmunologist also diagnosed him as having asthma. He explained that when they broke his sternum to get into the heart it could have messed up his tracheal tube and with his previous reflux problems on top of that it could be causing the asthma. I haven't had a chance to google asthma so I am really clueless what it is...but from what this Dr. said it is not anything too serious. It may affect him playing sports, but we are already limited in that area because of his heart. We were sent home with quite a few medicines that he'll be on for at least a year. He did mention that it is a chronic disease and we will have to visit him regularly for it to be monitored. We saw Dr. Thomas, he spoke on my level and explained everything in layman's terms. I really liked him and I'm glad to have another good doctor on our "team".

Since Christopher has been so puny we haven't been doing to much. Yesterday afternoon we were going to do touristy stuff downtown. We started with the USS Kidd. The boys loved it. By the time we were finished there, Christopher was too tired to walk around downtown so we just headed to Dearman's (the BEST burgers in the world!!) and then headed home for naps. Here are a few pictures.