It's been a while and now we're back...

Hello.  Were you starting to miss us?? I thought you might be so we decided to come back.  

Darla Jane had an appointment at the beginning of the month.  Dr. Mart wanted to do an echo on her, un-sedated.  Let's just say, it was UN-successful.  Which also pertained to the whole appointment.  Our little miss is realizing that she DOES NOT like to visit the Dr. or anything that has to do with the Dr.  

After the unsuccessful appointment and because of a concern we had with her tiring when exercising and getting a bit blue in the face we decided that a sedated echo was in order. Sedated echo happened, almost 2 weeks ago.  The echo looked good.  No sign that there was anything causing a problem. Dr. Mart asked us to take her blood oxygen level just after exerting herself, like after climbing the stairs.  I did. And I found the problem.  The average population has a blood oxygen level of 95-100.  Darla Jane's normal is close to 80-85.  When I tested her at the top of the stairs. 43.  43!  I freaked out. Called Nathan.  Asked him if I should have her go up the stairs and test it again. He told me no!  If that's what she was at we shouldn't be "testing her".  We decided to just have her climb the stairs once a day through the weekend and see what numbers we got.  So we did.  The highest she was after exertion was 54.  I called her Dr. last week and told him what we found.  He was concerned (and rightfully so!) and advised we get her into the cath lab within the next week or two.  His prediction was that she developed collateral veins.  Veins that form on their own and take the blood supply away from the places that it really needs to go.   In the lab they will put her under anesthesia, run catheters up her arteries to her heart, inject a dye so they can track where her blood is flowing... then hopefully see the problem and easily fix it.  We are scheduled for the cath lab on February 13th.  What a way to celebrate CHD awareness week right? She's excited about it....