Heart Defect

Well I just got back from the hospital. They did a echocardiogram and found very high pressures in there (pulmonary hypertension). They were about to put her on nitrous oxide again along with viagra. But the more they looked at the pictures from the echo they began to notice something. They have noticed a heart defect. The right side of her heart apears to be normal but the left side (the side that returns the blood to the lung) is abnormal. Dr. Starns is pretty sure this is what's been going on. But he wants another cardiologist to review the echo. If they can make the diagnosis with the pictures alone then we will just have to wait till she gets bigger for heart surgery. If they can not make the diagnosis with just the echo pictures then they will be sending her down to the cath lab to have a heart cath to try and diagnosis it. Regardless if it is what they say it is she will have to have surgery to repair it. There are no meds to help it. And if it isn't fixed her lung could overfill with blood and send her into congestive heart failure which could kill her. So they did not put her on the nitrous or the viagra because they said it could cause things to get worse. So they put her back on the ventilator to help with the pressures. She's at 100% oxygen a rate of 35 and 14 pressure. She is still sating in the 80-low 90's but they need them to stay above 95. She will have to stay on the vent until she can have her heart fixed. They said she's still to small for the surgery and too small to be put on the bypass machine. I think she has to be over 5 pounds first. This is going to be a VERY VERY VERY long NICU stay. I'm guessing now that we have at least another 4 months or so ahead of us. Please keep Carly in your prayers. She's been through a lot and still has quite a few hurdles to jump. I'll have more info on her heart probably this Monday. She did at least get all her old primary nurses back in the NICU. I'll post a new update soon.

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