Pray For Lincoln!

We would love to give you pictures and an update about the progress over the last three weeks but we have some more urgent news to give you. Wednesday (9/6) Lincoln had a scheduled appointment with his pediatrition. We told her that he had been sweating on his head and neck a bunch but his hands and feet were cold. He also had been laboring in his breathing more than usual. Fortunately he was scheduled to have an echocardiogram done the next day by his cardiologist because the symptoms we had mentioned sounded like some kind of heart trouble. Thursday Lincoln had his echo done and the results were less than pleasing. His cardiologist said that his heart looked more tired than it did a month before and there was also a potential blockage. He wanted Lincoln to have a cardiac catheterization the following Wenesday to get a better picture of what was going on inside his heart. After that appointment we went home in preparation for Wednesday. The next day (Friday) Lincoln started laboring even more in his breathing and started having a low-grade fever. He was also not eating and severely dehydrated. We felt Lincoln was working too hard at breathing to wait until Wednesday so we brought him in again. The Dr's felt that he should be admitted so they could monitor him until Wed. Through the night Lincoln had ups and downs...he was struggling to eat and was turning pale. Saturday morning while in the hospital we felt Lincoln was going from bad to worse. They ordered another echocardiogram. A different view confirmed Lincoln had a blockage in his aortic arch probably caused by scar tissue that had built up where the coarctation repair took place during his first surgery. It was significant enough to block the flow of blood to the point that his heart was overloaded and failing. They decided to rush Lincoln in to PICU (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit) and intubate him and start giving him some special heart medication to help out his heart function. Through the day they stabilized him and told us that the blockage needed to be removed but the good news was that they could do that during the heart catheterization. The bad news was that the Dr that does these specialized catheterization was out of town until Thursday. They told us we needed to have it done soon so they decided to fly Lincoln back down to UCLA for the procedure. While we were home preparing to leave again for UCLA the Dr called us an hour before Lincoln was to be transported and told us that the Dr had not left to go out of town yet and that he could do the procedure that night. We rushed back to the hospital as they were preparing Lincoln to go into surgery. The catheterization took 3 hours and they were able to open the blockage with a balloon. This is just a temporary fix and will have to be repaired again soon in the future but should buy him some time before his next scheduled surgery in a few months. Lincoln is now recovering in the PICU. He needs lots of prayers! Some concerns are that the heart and lungs were working so hard for so long that they could have been damaged...so the prayer is that now that the blockage is gone, that the cardiac function (squeezing effect and vigor of the heart muscle) would come back. Another prayer is that he can ween back off of the ventilator and breathe on his own again...this is touchy because breathing puts an extra load on the heart and his heart is already very tired. Another thing is, unless he is able to come home and his heart function and ventrical strength gets better, he will not be able to have his next surgery. PLEASE PRAY THAT HIS HEART FUNCTION GETS STRONGER AND HE CAN COME OFF OF THE VENT! Well, we will try to keep you posted of his progress as much as time allows us...until then PRAY, PRAY, PRAY! Sorry again for the lack of corrispondence...the last three weeks have been very fun and Lincoln was doing great and hopefully soon again. We love you all! J&K