The epic 3-week check up

On Tuesday, I took Dallin to the pediatrician for a regular check up.  When we were in the hospital for his birth, he saw the on call pediatrician, so this was Dallin's first visit to the one that would be seeing him regularly.  When the doctor came in, she immediately became worried about his coloring.  She thought he looked blue.  I think this was a result of the way I was holding him, combined with him being cold and naked.  Before even coming in the room all the way, she went right back out to grab a monitor to attach to Dallin so she could watch how much oxygen he was taking in.  As soon as I moved him, his color was totally fine.  The monitor was showing that he was breathing fine, so she proceeded with her check-up.  As she listened to his heart, she noticed a heart murmur.  When he was born, they told us that he had a heart murmur and that they would be monitoring it, but no one said anything else about it, and they let us leave the hospital without saying anything else, so I assumed it wasn't an issue.  This pediatrician seemed really worried about it, and immediately ordered some chest x-rays while she talked to a cardiologist.  I took him down to get x-rayed.  He was laying on a cold table with no clothes on and I had to hold him perfectly still.  Dallin HATES being cold, so of course there was a lot of crying and more comments about his color.  (I don't know about you, but I'd be blue too if I was naked and strapped to a cold metal table.)  After the x-rays, we went back to talk to the pediatrician.  she wanted to have Dallin taken up to Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake to have a cardiologist there look at him.  She was still really worried about his oxygen levels. For the most part they were perfectly normal, but every once in a while, it would drop down below what the doctor was comfortable with.  So she was telling me I needed to rush him up to Salt Lake right then, and that it would be best to have someone else drive so I could sit in the back with him to watch him.  She seemed to be implying he might just stop breathing any second.  As we were having this conversation, she was watching his oxygen monitor and getting too worried so she said that he needed an ambulance to take him to the hospital because me driving him there wouldn't be fast enough.  She went to call the ambulance while the nurse came in to give him an oxygen mask.   

Of course, by this point I am freaking out worrying about my poor little baby!!  Mckay was getting ready to take one of his finals, but I called him and told him what was happening and that he needed to come to the health center.  His teacher agreed to let him take the final another time so he could come be with us.  When the paramedics got there, it calmed me down a little.  As they were assessing the situation and asking me questions, they seemed to conclude that this was probably the doctor overreacting rather than a serious problem with Dallin.  But since they were called, they put his car seat on the gurney and wheeled him out to the ambulance.  We drove over in the ambulance; no lights on, no rush.  I don't even think Dallin was on any oxygen in the back.  I guess the paramedics didn't know that the pediatrician had intended for Dallin to be taken to Salt Lake because they drove us to the hospital in Provo, just a few blocks away.  Mckay drove over in our car and got there about the same time we did.  It was one big expensive ride to the hospital that wasn't even necessary.

After the Emergency Room doctors finally decided that this wasn't really an emergency situation, they admitted Dallin to pediartics so they could observe him and do tests to see what needed to be done.  They got him a room with an awesome bed...

...put him in a hospital gown...

(sorry, I'm too lazy to turn the picture)

...and then we waited.

Notice the IV in his arm.  He did not like that!

Since he was supposed to be at children's hospital where the expert cardiologists are, all the tests and things they did had to be sent to Salt Lake, analyzed there, and then sent back to us in Provo.  They only had the images and info that was sent to them and they couldn't examine Dallin in person, so we spent a lot of time waiting to hear what was happening.  After 3 echocardiograms (basically an ultrasound of the heart), an EKG, and 2 whole days in the hospital, we finally had an idea of what was happening.  A cardiologist from Salt Lake came down to our hospital on Thursday to do an echo and examine Dallin herself.  (So the first 2 echos were pretty much a waste since she still wanted to do her own to see for herself.  And we could have just gone to see the cardiologist in the first place instead of spending days in the wrong hospital.  Can you tell I'm a little frustrated by the whole ordeal?)  The cardiologist said that his pulmonary valves that lead into his lungs are more narrow than normal.  She said the course of action is to thread a catheter through a vein in his groin up to the pulmonary valve where they will relase a dye.  The dye will be able to tell them where the narrowing is occuring; if it's just a small portion or if it's the whole valve that is narrowed.  From there they will know what to do.  They might put a ballon in there to widen the vavle, or it might be as serious as surgery.  Although she is pretty optimistic that surgery won't be necessary.  She had Dallin put on oxygen just as a precaution to ensure that his blood vessels are getting enough oxygen.  She is also hoping that the oxygen will help to widen the valve on it's own and the heart catheterization won't even be necessary.  They'll do another echo (#4!!) next week to see if the valve has changed before going forward with the catheter.

They finally let us go home on Thursday and now we are back at home.  Dallin is still on oxygen here, but we are all happy to be back home.

Dallin is sleeping and eating better since we got home.  He seems a lot happier too.  He doesn't like having the oxygen tubing in his nose, or the stickers on his face to hold it in place, but I think he perfers that to all the wires and the IV connected to him.  Sometimes he'll manage to pull the tubing out of his nose and get it into his mouth to suck on it.  The hospital delivered a huge oxygen tank to our house.  We put it in the middle of our apartment, and with the extra long tubing, he can get anywhere in the apartment.

Even though this whole thing has been long and frustrating, we feel very blessed that the problem has been discovered and is very fixable.  Dallin is such a sweet cute baby and we're glad he is our son.  We've had some wonderful people helping us through this.  Some of his nurses were really great and were genuinely concerned about what was best for him and how they could help us.  Our wonderful family members were great about coming to visit so we weren't so lonely and they even brought us some much needed food. We're grateful for people that were in tune with the spirit and stopped by our home just because they felt like we might be having a rough day and offered to bring us dinner.  We know that Heavenly Father has been looking out for us this whole time and he will continue to watch out for Dallin.