Disconcerting

Background: When Noah had just turned two and was wheeled back into the OR for his second open-heart surgery (first here in the US)...his heart went into a crazy, fast rhythm. It wouldn't respond to medicine to get it back under control. They had to shelve plans for surgery. It was particulary scary in that the doctors said you couldn't tell by looking at him that his heart was doing these gyrations...only because they had him hooked up to machines did they have any idea what was going on inside that precious little chest. The docs said if he were older, he could tell us when episodes like this happened...

Noah was put on medicine to help regulate the rhythm of his heart, until he ended up having that open-heart surgery 4 weeks later. Noah then wore 24-hour Holter monitors a handful of times over the next couple of years.

The holter monitors let us know when - two years later - it was time to have Noah's pacemaker implanted. The monitors showed that Noah's average heart rate (over a whole 24-hour period) was 70 beats per minute. Normal is 105. And when he was asleep, Noah's heart beats per minute dipped down into the 30s. The technical term is Bradycardia.

So he's now had the pacemaker for 3.5 years. It is set so that his heart cannot go below 70 beats per minute. But if he is active, his heart can go faster than that 70, to keep up with his body's oxygen needs.

And now...

Several times over the last couple of month, Noah has come to me - hand covering his heart - to tell me that his heart feels funny. I've taken his pulse and recorded the date/time, to compare with what the pacemaker read out says at his next Electro-physiologist appointment. And I plan to talk with them about this. BUT, Noah and I both weren't 100%, TOTALLY sure if these slightly elevated pulses weren't due to him running around the house some.

Until, that is, last night.

Last night, he came to me once, and I measured and recorded a pulse of 92 bpm.

And then, just a few minutes later - when he had definitely NOT been running around at ALL - it was slightly over 120 bpm.

I'm concerned.

Our regularly scheduled annual appointment was already scheduled for a week and a half from now. The "coincidence" is not lost on me. Thank you for that perfect timing, Lord.

I hope they tell us it is nothing. I hope they tell us this is totally normal...or at least totally normal for someone with Noah's physiology.

I would appreciate your prayers for our precious boy...and his anxious mama.