Josie LiNi's Heart - Part 2 (It's still complicated)

Forgive the delay in posting.

Mr. M and I met with the cardiologist yesterday to discuss what the Heart Cath showed and what the plans would be.  It was not quite what we expected, so I needed a day to reset before posting it.

The concerning stuff:

• Josie has had pulmonary hypertension (PH) for a long time - and the arteries to her lungs have taken a beating.
• They have thickened and stiffened in response to the continual high pressure.
• They can't (or won't) repair her heart with the pulmonary arteries the way they are.

The encouraging part:

• Josie responded fairly well to drugs to lower her PH
• And - she has all the right "parts" for a good repair, its just that all the plumbing is WAY wrong.
• This means if we get her PH down and her arteries heal up she is a real good candidate for a real good repair.
• Particularly nice is that her heart valves are all there and in fine working order.  This is nice because it will minimize the number of future operations she will need (valve repairs need to be re-done every so often)

So the plan is:

• Put her on some very high powered meds to bring down the PH (and watch her closely)
• Give her body 6 months to respond and start to heal up
• Re-do the heart cath in 6 months to see how the meds are working and if she is healing.
• We many have to repeat this a few times - we will see.
• Once she is at an acceptable level surgery would follow in about 1 month.

The thing that shocked me (in a good way)

If her pulmonary arteries never heal enough for surgery her life will be shortened.
With current medical treatment she could live to be 30 - 40.
Um- we were thinking if she was inoperable we had a handful of years, so this sounds pretty good.
Of course if we can't repair her heart her stamina will never be 100%, so we very much want to work to a repair.

For my praying friends:

• Pray her PH comes under control easily!
• Pray her body reforms and heals up those arteries to her lungs
• Pray she does not get the nasty side effects from the hi powered drugs!
• Pray we have wisdom about what Dr and medical center should do her repair.  (we have choices)

And --- please pray that the California Children's Services case gets opened.  Its not totally critical - but it is necessary and messing with it is a hassle.   It will help with the co-pays for Josie's treatment.

(Oh, and PS - we are also looking at what is going on with the language delay.  Now that we aren't looking at imminent surgery we are going to have to get after that little item)