Home of the Four Trans

Justin had his heart catherization done yesterday at CHOC and the results were very positive. We were told that his arteries have grown, pressure in his lungs were low and  we were all set to move to the next stage. He would still need to stay overnight because the cath was done towards the evening and they needed to make sure he recovers properly. Jennifer stayed back with Justin and I went home to watch our other boy, Nathan.

The next morning our Cardiologist stopped by to see how our baby was doing, and he noticed something unusual with the monitors. Justin was having some irregular heartbeats, so blood work was ordered to determine if he was lacking in electrolytes. The results came back negative, but Justin’s heart was still not functioning normally. After hours of alarms sounding, screens flashing, and countless strangers poking and prodding at Justin, he was finally able to fall asleep inside of his stroller. What happens next is very difficult to put into words, but I’ll try my best.

Basically, Justin was choking (possibly from his acid reflux) and stopped breathing for eight seconds. His heart stopped and so did ours. Every doctor, nurse, assistant, you name it, came running into our room to try to help. Dr. Chang (the Cardiologist) was able to get him breathing again by tilting his head backwards to open up his airways. This was a very scary experience, especially seeing Justin turn blue and knowing he was not breathing at all. Luckily, we were in the hospital when this occured and that everyone here responded so quickly, otherwise this post might have been different.

We are still at the hospital and most likely will be here for a few more days until they can figure out exactly what caused the episode this morning. Could it be the acid reflux? Jen and I are not so certain, however, at this point there isn’t much we can do besides pray.   

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 9th, 2008 at 8:57 pm and is filed under Heart Disease, Justin. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.