Friday, July 31, 2009

discouraging news

Just when it actually did seem safe to get our hopes up about going home we found out some news that will keep us here at least a few more days. They did an echo for J.J. today and found out that there is a 1 cm (10mm) blood clot in his conduit, right behind the valve. They weren't going to do an echo today because they had mistakenly thought that J.J. had one last week. Luckily we pushed to look into it a little more and it turned out they were looking at June 25. So he went down for an echo and they found the blood clot. At first it sounds a little alarming, seeing as the conduit is only 22 mm in diameter. The cardiologist was fairly calm about it seeing as it's not affecting the heart's function. If it breaks off the clot will go to the lung and that might give J.J. a bit of chest pain but it's not dangerous. So they'll go after the blood clot with blood thinner (Enoxaperin) and it sounds like the least invasive way is to put an injection patch on him. That will give them a port into which they can inject the medicine for about a week without hurting him. (They give it subcutaneously which means just under the skin.) Hope he doesn't get a skin reaction to this tape! They will do an echo again in 48 hrs to make sure the clot doesn't get bigger, hopefully it's the same or smaller. If that patch is the only remaining medical thing, they won't keep J.J. in hospital for that. They will teach us how to inject the medication and send us home with the patch.

I'm just sad for J.J. that he needs more pokes and procedures. It seemed like we were on the up and up. His oxygen has been off all day though and they aren't monitoring his numbers now so things are getting lighter for him. He doesn't have a day in mind yet for when we're leaving but he has started planning his welcome home party!

On the positive side, J.J.'s been laughing a bit more, which is nice to see, and even gave us all kisses today. A lot of tv shows make him giggle and he's starting to be a bit sillier.

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