Hold the train!

The verdict is in and we are not going to Charleston this week. After two days of discussion between our Greenville cardiologists, our pediatricians, and the cardiology group in Charleston, it has been decided that we need to wait and let Rebekah's lungs get back to normal before attempting the heart catheterization. We will know more this week, but the current plan is to try to reschedule in about two weeks.

So sweet!

Rebekah has had a busy two days! Yesterday, she woke me up around 5:00 in the morning with her oxygen sat monitor beeping. She had dropped into the mid 70's and was not able to come back up on her own. So her nurse gradually increased her O2 until Rebekah was at a full liter of oxygen. Then Rebekah had another incident early in the afternoon yesterday when her sats went down again, so we are currently on a liter and a half of oxygen just to maintain sats in the low to mid 80's. Our night nurse was going to try to wean Rebekah down some during the night, but her sats were never stable enough and high enough to wean. That left us with a big question - what is going on to make Rebekah's sats so low and unstable??

I love you!

This morning, Dr. Butler came by (Zac and Justin both had his wife as their K-4 teacher.). He looked at the chest x-rays that Rebekah had done yesterday and said that the lower part of Rebekah's left lung has collapsed most likely due to whatever respiratory bug she has right now. If she is not expanding her lungs fully, they are more likely to collapse. Thankfully, her right lung looks fine. We also ruled out RSV yesterday, so that is encouraging! Dr. Butler ordered some chest PT for Rebekah (remember how much she liked that last time she was in the hospital?) and some nebulizer treatments with Xopenex every 6 hours. Xopenex is a fairly new drug that is supposed to have the result of opening the airways just as well as Albuterol, but is not supposed to elevate the heart rate and blood pressure quite as much as Albuterol does. We'll see how Rebekah does with it.

I like to smile!

Rebekah also had an echocardiogram this morning, just to rule out any possible heart complications. Dr. Raunniker came by to see us this morning, and he was going to read the echo and let us know if there were any problems. We aren't expecting any. This looks like the work of a respiratory illness, not a cardiac problem.

So, that leaves us in the hospital a few more days until we can get Rebekah's lungs back to normal. We have officially been in the hospital for half of 2010 now, and are looking forward to being able to go home. We are so thankful that Rebekah made it without having to be hospitalized until almost Christmas and then again in January. Many other kids and parents are not able to say that. If you think of it, please keep our little friend, Josiah, in your prayers. He had been home for a few days after Christmas, but had to be taken back to MUSC with unexplained high fevers. Now the doctors believe he has an ulcer in his stomach and have put him on some new medications. I'm sure their family would appreciate your prayers.