Saturday, September 4, 2010

Jack's heart

Jack is a warrior in his own right. A fighter that has overcome much pain and struggle. He will carry this burden his whole life. Those that don't know him well and those that first meet him would not know off hand what burden he holds for such a young man. He is active and happy and doesn't choose to wallow in grief. I hope that he may keep strong with that strength as he gets older.

We went in for a few important heart appointments these past few days. First was his ECHO. We didn't get quite the glowing perfect WOW appointment that we'd hoped for, but it is not the worse we could get either. Jack's ventricle function has slowed. It's time for a heart medicine. We've been able to get by with only one tablet of low dose asprin a day previously. And the Cardiologist would really love to put him on a drug called Enalapril, but Jack is highly allergic to it. So this new medication I must be careful with and remember not only to give it to him each day but about the same time each day. They will be periodically testing his blood.

Yesterday Jack got his EKG and slew of tests. We get the unpleasant task of donating poop to the lab. This has put Jack into stress and has, since receiving the news, not been able to "go". We waited most of the day in Bountiful since we needed to get it to the lab 1 hr after ... going. Jack was also hooked up to a halter monitor. Thank goodness it wasn't for a month like the event recorder. He will get to take it off this morning.

2 comments:

Cindy said...

Glad you posted about his appointments. I was meaning to ask you about it and hadn't had the chance. I'm sure it's not fun to have to start giving him some medicine and get his blood tested every so often, but glad to hear it went as well as it did and that he didn't have to have the monitor for a month again. :)

Julie said...

I hope the meds help hold him for a while. Good luck with it all. You are all real troopers with all these MD appointments all the time. I honestly don't know how you do it!