Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Let's start with the good news first. I mentioned that at Hunter's last hospitalization they found a heart condition called Pulmonary Hypertension. This can be a pretty serious condition of the heart, but thankfully they caught it and began to treat it. They prescribed viagra to him, originally a heart medication until some old guy found out it had benefits. They also increased his oxygen from .25 liter to 1 liter. (basic mathematics) The oxygen along with the viagra was the course of treatment for his heart condition. Last month the plan was to wait a month and see if there is an improvement. Hunter had a cardiologist appointment today. They did an echocardiogram. Guess what...big improvement! A month ago, Hunter's right side of his heart was greater than his left side. Hunter's right side is now lessor than his left side. They are not doing the cardiac catherization. They even talked about weening his oxygen to .5 liter. This is pending Hunter's pulmonary doctor's opinion. They think that his pulmonary hypertension is secondary to his chronic lung disease. This means that as his lungs are getting better, so will his heart. Yay! We aren't getting cocky yet though. Of course, they aren't sure that it is secondary to his BPD (chronic lung) yet. They are very optimistic. The cardiologist doesn't want to see Hunter back for four months.


Actually, I have double whammy of good news. The second part of my good news is that Hunter saw his pediatrician the other day. He said that it sounds like Hunter is moving air better threw his lungs. Hunter knocked his nasal cannula out of his nose the other night. His monitor sounds whenever his oxygen level falls below 94. They have to be strict about his oxygen level because of his Pulmonary Hypertension. In the past, when Hunter knocked his nasal cannula out of his nose, his oxygen level would fall fast and dramatically. It wasn't odd to say that he would quickly get to 70/60 and be blue. The other night, Hunter's monitor was beeping so I went into his room. I found his nasal cannula above his nose. But, his oxygen level was staying at 91 with no oxygen. I sat there and watched it for a minute. It remained at 91, then slowly dropped to 88, climbed back up to 91 (without the oxygen in his nose) but hovered between 88-91. I put the nasal cannula in after a couple minutes because his monitor was driving me crazy. But, hopefully that is a sign that his lungs are growing healthier.