recap and update

So this whole story started back in July of 2011 with an innocent check up at her doctors. She heard something off while listening to Haleys heart. We went for a EKG, then later for an echo. The echo showed 2 huge holes in her heart. Ventricular septal defects. Measuring 12mm and 14mm. We made a plan to have them closed. If we didnt do it soon, the worry was she would develop pulmonary hypertension that was irreversible.
We planned surgery, but the doctors decided to do a catheter first to make sure the pressures were safe to do surgery....in other words to see if she had already developed PH. During this catheter we discovered she had a patent ductus arteriosis (open duct between her aorta and pulmonary artery) it was 7mm, they plugged it with a 10mm vsd plug. And the doctor informed us that she had pulmonary hypertension and at this point surgery was not an option.
We stayed in the hospital for 5 days giving them time to figure out what to do with us. They put her on two meds and 1 lpm oxygen. and we went home to wait.
As long as there are two huge holes in her heart the pressure will be the same on both sides. So the pulmonary pressures will always be high. So we are measuring the resistance from her arteries on her lungs. A normal resistance would be under 2. They told us they would like to see resistance of 3 to 4 before we would do surgery to fix the holes. This would be considered a safe number. In august her pressures were 12 on room air and 11.8 on oxygen. In december we were awesomely surprised to find them at 7.5 room air and 4.5 with oxygen.
I wish I had better news today. The doctor came out talking about shunting the other way and the resistance being about the same. I thought I was listening but I cant recall any of the numbers, but they were about the same. We havent had talked with our cardiologist about the catheter yet and I will get all the info when we do. But we did chat with him about the transesophigal echo he did. He said he got great pictures of her VSDs, which will aid in the patching of them when that time comes. He said they are really close together and separated only by a small piece of muscle. He said he was amazed her heart functions as well as it does and that she has a strong heart beat.
She had to lay flat for 6 hrs to let the entry point clot. They kept her on sleep meds the whole time so she wouldnt move. It is now 10pm, we are waiting for the doctor to give the ok to take those sleep meds off. When we took the pressure bandage off there was a tiny bit of bleeding so she will not be able to get up and walk around tonight. Just to make sure that it is well clotted. She is breathing great, her heart rate is hanging out between 60-70, blood pressure is good and her blood oxygen level is sticking around 96 - 97. She looks good and drank about 12 oz of water and kept it down. We will try apple juice then jello. She hasnt had any food since last night around 7. Breakfast cannot come soon enough for her.
I will update after we talk to the cardiologists.....hopefully in the morning. All is well.

I recapped for all our new peps, if you want to read the whole story you can go back into the archives on the left side of the page scroll down until you see blog archives! Thanks for all the prayers and well wishes!