Heart Cath Surgery

Link goes in tomorrow morning for a heart cath. It's similar to the first surgery he had when he was two days old. They go through the artery in his leg, up to his heart. They are going to dye the blood to get a better look at the blood flow through his heart. They might possibly try to open his shunt up (because it's getting clogged with blood). What they see tomorrow will help us make a more definite "plan" of the next few months of his life. It will help us determine when we need the Glenn and hopefully determine how successful that will be. We might not get to meet with his cardiologist tomorrow so we might have to wait a few weeks to hear about the "plan". Link's surgery will be at 10:30 and he needs to stay for at least 24 hours afterwards. We are hoping for no complications or blood clots (like last time) and then we should be home by Saturday. Cross your fingers!!!

3 months old!

The day we came home from the hospital, Link turned THREE MONTHS OLD!Ever since we upped his Zantac and got him on Oxygen, he's been a completely different baby!! He SMILES and TALKS all the time! He's such a good little baby!

Link's LONG Dr's apt!!

Link went in for an apt. at Primary's to get an upper GI (for his acid reflux) at 2:00 Thursday... 22 hours later he was discharged from the CICU (cardiac Intensive Care Unit).

Russ took Link to his apt to get an upper GI so that the Dr.'s could prescribe something better for his acid reflux because the zantac wasn't working. Something was wrong with the machine so they couldn't do it for about a half hour so Russ decided he would go to Cardiac and get Link's Oxygen Stats checked. He statted at high 50's, low 60's (a normal baby or person like you or me should be statting in the 90's. They want Link to be statting between 75 and 85 so he was statting very low). So they strapped him up to oxygen, did an echo (ultrasound) on his heart, and said that he was staying the night. The ultrasound showed that his shunt was starting to clog up so he wasn't getting as much blood flow through the shunt. He did well with oxygen throughout the night and... we had been giving him the WRONG DOSE of Zantac so they upped the Zantac and he did MUCH better (HORRIBLE parents, I know, but it was really a tender mercy because if his tummy wasn't hurting so much we wouldn't have gone to Primary's and found out that his stats were so low and wouldn't have been able to get oxygen on him). They tried setting up an appointment with the Cath lab today (they would go INSIDE him with a catheter, dye the blood, etc. to get the BEST look at his heart) but the cath lab was full today so they sent us home (with oxygen).

The plan is to come back in a week or two and do the cath lab to get the best view of his heart and do a "Pre-Glenn" of his heart. Then the Dr. told us that we need to do the Glenn surgery sooner than later- probably when he is around 4 1/2 months old (in a month and a half).

He was such a trooper the entire time we were there.

Can't get enough

Even though he's a stinker sometimes, I can't get enough of this little guy.

Here's Link and his cousin, Macen, at Easter. Macen LOVED Lincoln but is definitely a little BIGGER!!

GREEN EYES?!
Link still has blue eyes but this picture that Russ took shows him with green...weird. I guess only time will tell!!

Rough Start

Poor Link! He's had such a crappy life! If living at Primary's and having heart surgeries the first month of life wasn't enough, the last month he's had horrible tummy issues- constipation, gas, and acid reflux! He'll scream when he eats because it hurts him and he's been pretty fussy because he's so uncomfortable. We've tried...

Primary Children's apt to make sure his heart was okay
Different bottles
Mylecon
Pediatrician appointment
Prune juice
Suppositories
Swing
Another Pediatrician appointment
Tummy X-ray
Zantac
pumping his legs
more suppositories
Keeping him upright after he eats
tilting his bed
herbal digestive remedy on his tummy
order for an upper GI x-ray

Finally, I've been taking him to this Chiropractor in Draper that's been treating him with holistic remedies (ie: "desensitizing" him to his milk, working on his feet, adjusting his back, using a cold lazer. etc.). It's the only thing that has really seemed to help. Now Link doesn't scream during ALL of his bottles and is only pretty fussy at night. He poops by himself and everything! He's still fussy and uncomfortable sometimes and I hate seeing him in pain but I'm glad he's doing a little better. For a while there he was going to be an only child... he might still be (at least for a LONG time)!!! Good thing he is SO DANG CUTE!!! Here's some of my favorite recent pictures!