Kylie vs Moving day

    Moving day is always a stressful day, sometimes it is exciting, but over all it can be very stressful.  You go from a very familiar comfortable place to a new unfamiliar place, with strange neighbors.  You have to get to know new people and make sure they aren't grumpy, anti-social or strange, though some would argue you can't be stranger than me, and they wonder the same about you. Also it is never easy to see all of the items that make your house a home in boxes and in disarray.  It is even less fun when that day is unplanned and unforeseen.  Usually, things work themselves out, but for the most part...Moving stinks like spoiled milk.  Can you guess what we did today?  I will give you three guess and the first two don't count.
   That's right we moved...good guess.  The only problem is that we haven't moved home.   We are now in Moderate Care, which (as the name suggests) is in between ICU and general floor, they were ever so creative when they named it, weren' they.  So how does one go from, yesterday, being let out of the hospital on a day pass and then today being in Moderate Care hooked up to monitors.  I am glad you asked, well I guess you didn't really ask, I more wrote...but I am sure the intent was there.....Anyways.
   We were scheduled to do the heart cath today and today was the day that we were going to get answers.  I like answers, they are comforting.  If answers were a bed, I would get a great night sleep and wake up rested.  Well, we got answers and a little surprise.  I like surprises...overtime on a paycheck that I forgot about, my wife surprising me with my favorite dinner, things like that, those surprises are fun.  This one wasn't so fun.   I will tell you the surprise but let me tell you the whole story first.  I am writing this update so I can do things like that and get away with it.
    They did the heart cath to find out the pressures in the heart.  The thought was that if the pressures were too high that could be causing the heart to work too hard and cause it to produce the excess fluid.  If the pressures were high then they would open the fenestration up which would, hopefully, help relieve the pressure.  Basically, if Kylie had a pressure level of 10 or higher, it was certain that the pressure was too great and they would make the hole.  If Kylie had a a pressure of 4 or lower it was certain that the pressure wasn't the problem and Kylie wouldn't need the fenestration.  Can you guess what the fluid level was, let me give you a hint...it wasn't 10 and it wasn't 4 but if you take those two number and subtract them....you would get our number.  That's right we had six, we were in the gray area and it was up to the doctor.  Basically, if you think of Kylie as a stop light, we were looking for a red or green light and she gave us a flashing yellow light.  The doctor felt it would be in her best interest to get the fenestration, so he did.  The real fun is what happened next, as the doctor was finishing up the hole Kylie's heart decided to take a break and become rather lazy.  It went from 70-80 beats a min to 43, which kind of freaked the doctor out a bit and bought us a new room.  What they think happen is that Kylie's rhythm is already alittle screwy, remember we are looking at a pace maker in 8-12 years, so it is already susceptible to damage.  As far as I can gather, there is a portion of the heart called the AV node that regulates the rhythm and, being already weak, is not as protected as it could be.  The thought is that the cath hit the node and bruised it sending it into funky rhythm, at first I was angry and wanted to blame the doctor, but from the sounds of it, there was no way they could have known ( the thing is microscopic), if that is the cause at all.  They moved Kylie to moderate care so they can keep a better eye on her and have her hooked up to the monitors to keep an eye on the heart.  The heart can heal itself with time or it might not.  Let me be clear: THIS IS NOT LIFE THREATENING.  Just something we need to keep an eye on and see what the extent of it is.  We are going to talk to the rhythm doctors in the morning,  HA rhythm doctors make them sound more like the Blues Brothers than anything else :-).  I am sure they have a more technical name, but I have no idea what it is.  We are also going to run a few tests to see what the heart looks like, an electrocardiogram and wait.  This could resolve itself overnight, it could be a week to ten days or it could not at all.
   So here is where we stand.  We do not have a definite idea where the fluid is coming from.  We may never know, some doctors aren't even sure if it is the heart to begin with.  We have reopened the fenestration and are more than likely going to continue with Diuretics to keep working on the fluid.  The heart cathFONTAINS just collect fluid.  Also we are going to be meeting with the BLUES BROTHERS, yep the name has stuck and see what we are going to do about the rhythm.  We also need to meet with the Kidney Doctors to discuss diuretics, remember she a history of kidney stones which, we feel are caused by too much diuretics.   So tomorrow should be fun :-), never a boring day.
   On a happy but bittersweet topic.  Two of our little friends, Hannah and Owen look like they are going home in the A.M.   They both got their chest tubes pulled today and if they have a good X-ray tomorrow, then they can go home.  While we are happy to see them go, it is sad to see friends of ours go while we are still...Lord willing, we will follow in their footsteps soon.  God bless and good night.