So glad he's doing better, Cat! My prayers are with you and your family.

I snuck some virtual brownies from the Porch for you: butterscotch, regular and almond joy brownies. Total comfort food!

Must resist... urge... to call out... Bulldozer Brigade... for mentioning of evil... thread... 

He was allowed to come home late yesterday afternoon.  Not out of the woods, but the cardiologist felt he was stable and not in danger.  They just don't know what is causing the fluctuations in the blood pressure and heart rate.  Wife is off this morning to pick up a halter monitor from one of the cardiologist's associates at a local hospital so that he can be monitored at home for a day (if he will leave it on).  Children's would have sent him home with one, but they didn't have any not in use.

And, so far this morning, he is acting fairly normal... listening to Enya on his CD player and picking on the 18 month old and 3 1/2 year old...

I hope your son starts feeling better, and that you get the answers so that things can be corrected and heal properly.

I spent this morning at the doctor all this morning, because my a day ago, my eldest daughter went outside and was playing and found my second daughter (Rebecca) passed out on the grass. She called her name, and she came to... but it was like she'd been unconscious. Rebecca says the last thing she remembered was she was riding her bike. The doctor couldn't identify anything, but they did an EKG just to be sure, and a cardiologist is looking over the results, and all the other signs seemed to be normal. 

It's pretty scary to face these things.

--Ray

My daughter had a febrile seizure. That was enough for me.

What's 'funny' is that the actual seizure didn't scare me all that much because I pretty much knew what was happening and what to do. What really scared me was for several hours afterward, she couldn't seem to talk or communicate.

I hope you both get the help you need. There's nothing worse than not knowing.

Son seems to be doing a little better this morning.  His heart rate was low again last night (in the low 40's), but for a while was up in the 70's this morning before I left for work.  He kept the Holter monitor on until this morning, and hopefully the leads (there are about 7 or 8 of them) all stayed on long enough over the past 20 or so hours that enough data was collected they can see things and maybe come to some sort of diagnosis.

Febrile seizure?  Yeah, we know about those.  Scarey indeed.  The baby suffered one a couple months ago when she was sick.  You name it, our kids have probably had it.  Three calender years straight of making the maximum out of pocket on our health insurance (and hence having sufficient medical expense to include in on itemized deductions at tax time).  I honestly think at times that if it weren't for the miracle of modern medicine, I'd be much like the man from early latter-day Church history whose children nearly all one by one got sick and died... Hosea Stout.

Thanks to all who have remembered my boy in your prayers! 

Hang in there, Cat. The Lord knows what He is doing. :hugs:

--bok

I hope that everything goes well with him. You've been through a very tough time.

Okay all, here is the latest. This has been a rough week for the whole family.

School is in full swing, early morning seminary and everything. Oldest son ends up having more episodes of bradycardia (no, it has nothing to do with the Brady Bunch, you sillies... it means the heart is beating too slowly) late last week, and just about faints at school last Friday. He is not acting right on Sunday, and mini-beserker warrior son also complains about his tummy achin', so Dad opts to stay home from church with the boys. Monday morning, wife takes older son into doctor to have ear checked, because on Sunday, it looked like he had drainage from the ear due to a ruptured ear drum (he's had them numerous times before and we usually have no idea he has an ear infection until this occurs as he can't talk and tell us he is in pain). Turns out he only had a scratch on the skin inside of the ear canal. But, he is having bradycardia again and then add on the addition of low blood pressure. Pediatrician and Cardiologist said get him to Childrens ASAP. Wife gets him down there by mid afternoon and they evaluate him. Decision is made that he needs emergency heart surgery, so they pencil him in for 8:00 a.m. Tuesday morning for a pacemaker.

With thanks to some help from neighbors (who let one daughter spend the night so she could go to school with their daughter in the morning) and a good RS President and a fabulous seminary teacher, oldest daughter was able to get to high school after seminary and I was able to drop the two youngest off with someone who could watch them so I could travel down the 20 or so miles in rush hour traffic to be at the hospital for the surgery the next morning. I barely got there in time to give him a blessing. He came out of surgery about 2 p.m. and out of recovery about 1 1/2 hours later, and then had a rough time with pain and dealing with the effects of the anesthesia and morphine he had been given. And, from what I'm told by Mrs. Cat Herder, the stupid nursing staff (against doctors orders) decided not to give him any pain medication after I left for the night (so he went 12 hours minimum with NO morphine for the pain, despite doctors orders stating he was to be given it every 3 hours from the time he left recovery) saying "they were trying to wean him off it" Yeah, wean him off what? 1 dose of morphine given AFTER leaving recovery and getting to his hospital room?! Idiots! Anyway, he was in so much pain, we didn't just advise or recommend they consider restraining him in the bed for his and everyone else's safety and so that he wouldn't rip IV's, bandages, and monitors off, we demanded they do it. He ripped through the first set of restraints they brought... yeah, right baby restraints are gonna do a whole lot of good for a nearly 16 year old autistic boy with a high tolerance for pain and therefore can show what can sometimes amount to superhuman strength.

Anyway, he had a rough night Tuesday and into Wednesday. He developed a fever and had some projectile vomitting early Wednesday, but he was well enough that after checking the pacemaker, he was discharged late Wednesday afternoon. He definitely needed the pacemaker. The pacemaker had been pacing the one chamber of his heart 60% of the time over the night, and 10% of the time in the other chamber. And it was set to pace for him if heart rate dropped below 70 beats per minute. The Holter monitors he had been on a couple times before had not caught delayed beats / skipped beats before because his heart had been beating too slowly. While he was on the operating table and they could control his heart rate, they raised it up to exercise speed (in the 120's and 130's), they then were able to see pauses of 2 seconds between beats. So, what that meant was there was a problem with the electrical system / internal battery charging / recharging of his heart. Nothing physically / structurally wrong, per se, but a degenerative condition with the electrical aspect known as sick sinus syndrome that would / will continue to get worse in the delays / skipped beats, and left without a pacemaker would eventually turn into serious fainting and seizures due to lack of oxygen to the brain and other organs. This is apparantly the same or similar sort of condition of where you hear of otherwise healthy athletes falling to the ground during a football or basketball game and dieing.

Anyway, since Wednesday evening, he has been at home taking it easy and recovering. Hopefully, he will be back up to snuff where he can go to school again on Monday. Mom, Dad, and oldest daughter (who is in high school) are emotionally and physically spent and drained... Mostly Mom, and then me following a close second, but we've tried to keep things as "normal" for the kids this week so that it wouldn't be interfering with their school and other things, so not so much for oldest daughter or the younger three.

Thanks for all who have kept / or did keep us and our son in your thoughts and prayers. Your exercise of faith in his behalf is greatly appreciated. Hopefully, this is the last episode to cause us worry with him for a season or two... It all happened so suddenly that even though it being nearly the better part of a week now, there is still only a handful of folks in the ward who are fully aware of what happened.

I am really sorry that you are going through such trials, Cat. It's easier to bear physical problems yourself than to see your kids go through it. Especially when certain medical personel in this situation sound, shall we say, less than competent?

Son was up to going to school today, so he is definitely on the mend.  He is acting perkier than he has for weeks / maybe months...