Joshua Update...

Today was a good day although exhausting. We arrived safely in Gainesville and went straight into our appointments with Dr. P and the cardiology team for EKG, ECHO, and X-RAY.

Here is what we know so far...

• He will be the first case in the morning. This is good news. We are to arrive at the hospital at 7AM. Our hotel is only a few blocks from the hospital.
• The procedure will take between 3-4 hours. It may take a little longer since he is allergic to the blood thinner they normally use. This may slow down the passing of the catheter through the arteries.
• Recovery will be about 3-6 hours. We will get to be with him during this time.
• They will NOT repair the PDA at this time. He feels the pressures are too high in the pulmonary arteries and would cause heart failure. Joshua may always have this PDA since his heart needs it right now as a pressure release valve. They will not consider closing it unless his pressures can come down by 50%.
• They will go through the groin for the cath unless there is scar tissue from previous procedures as an infant. If there is scar tissue, they will go through the neck.
• They will do testing of the pressures in the chambers of the heart. Then they will administer different gasses to see how the lungs react to it. This will help us determine which medicines are best for him in the long run. We may not be able to start these medicines immediately because they require insurance approval as they are expensive drugs. If they are able to start these immediately, we will stay in the hospital a couple days.
• The doctor feels this PDA must have popped back open sometime possibly while Joshua was still in the NICU. It's just not something that anyone would know about since it takes a while for the symptoms to appear.
• The heart cath is necessary whether they fix the PDA or not. It will definitively diagnose how bad the pulmonary hypertension is and how bad the arteries and ventricles of the heart are at this time.
• We WILL stay the night at the hotel either way tomorrow night. They do not want us to travel more than an hour away the first 24 hours after the surgery to make sure there are no problems with the artery they use.

We are also going to be meeting Dr. A tomorrow who is a pulmonary hypertension specialist. He will be able to give us more information as far as what to expect long term for Joshua and what his abilities are going to be.

Some of you may not realize this but Joshua gets out of breath just by taking the trash to the curb if the containers are heavy. A leisurely walk more than 100 feet makes him out of breath. These are the things we are hoping to improve upon but will never be able to fix completely.

If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment and I'll try to answer them on here.

Please pray for the doctors to see EXACTLY what they need to and to be able to find the perfect cocktail for Joshua to take to help his heart and lungs relax. Please also pray for me to relax and not stress out and take it all out on John!

Hug yourselves from us!