Nathan saw the pediatric cardiologist for another round of EKG's and ultrasounds of his heart. This appointment was to take a measurement to see how his aortic valve stenosis has changed this last 6 months.
In July his stenosis level was at the upper level of moderate at 45mmhg. That means if his blood pressure on his arm is 100/60 then his pressure in his heart is actually 145/60. Since a normal heart mmhg is zero, we had ourselves a starting point 6 months ago. Then we were able to measure the amount it got better, stayed the same, or got worse over a 6 month period of time. Our pediatric cardiologist said the magic number is 50 - anything over that means intervention.
The news was NOT good. His stenosis is now 60 - 70mmhg. This is a HUGE jump in the negative direction. I was heartbroken for the little man. Anything over 50 is considered severe and over 70 is considered critical. We had hoped to not need surgical intervention ever, let alone this soon.
Nathan will be having a sedated Echo cardiogram in the next 2-3 weeks which decides when a balloon valvuloplasty procedure will be preformed.
Please keep Nathan in your prayers as the next step after balloon valvuloplasty is to have heart surgery to replace his aortic valve. This is something we want to avoid altogether but certainly don't want to face it at this age. (He is 16 months old) The older he gets, the less chance that he will need his heart valve replaced multiple times to fit his growing body. Pray also that we would have wisdom in making our next decisions as to the best hospitals for pediatric heart surgeries and that our HMO insurance will approve his out of network care. Pray also that he will not have any allergic reactions to the anesthetic used in his next echo cardiogram, since he has so many allergies, I am concerned about a reaction above the normal vomit/nausea.
