Count down to knowing...

The past several weeks have been troublesome in our concern for what Amie's heart is doing and what the cath procedure is going to tell us.

Well, we had it scheduled for the 12th, but it got delayed because she has a little skin infection.  She has now done two rounds of antibiotics & it's still not completely cleared up.  She had more cultures done on Thursday & another medicine (trying a antifungal medicine this time).

At this point however, her cath will not be delayed again (hopefully) because her symptoms and lab results are telling us we need to get this done.  She will see pediatrician again this coming Thursday & then is scheduled for her cath on the 31st.

Below is her BUN lab results.  BUN is part of metabolic panel & typically refers to kidney function (along with creatinine).  However, her creatinine is normal & so are all of her other electrolytes.  This leads her pediatrician to believe her heart is giving more warning signs that it is not happy.  When I looked up BUN - here is the simple explanation:  

BUN stands for blood urea nitrogen. Urea nitrogen is what forms when protein breaks down.

Higher-than-normal levels may be due to:

• Congestive heart failure
• Excessive protein levels in the gastrointestinal tract
• Gastrointestinal bleeding
• Hypovolemia
• Heart attack
• Kidney disease, including glomerulonephritis, pyelonephritis, and acute tubular necrosis
• Kidney failure
• Shock
• Urinary tract obstruction

So I reviewed more information on the breakdown of the protein & the heart failure part.  Her pediatrician spent a great deal of time listening to her and asking about coughing (luckily she isn't coughing any more than she typically does).  

Well - I guess this is all pointing to the stenosis of the aortic valve causing these issues.

The pressure that it is causing on the blood flow is what is causing the arch to aneurysm & is causing the turbulence of the blood flow which then causes the blood to break down its proteins (thus the increase of the BUN). 

(The March reading of her BUN being high was when she kept getting sick & she had other lab values that were high as well)

So - we are just nervously awaiting the cath to tell us if doing the ballooning will be enough to reverse some of  her problems.....or if we are talking the big "O" again. 

 :(