ugh

cliffnotes: my son has a hole in his heart. i'm a little freaked out.

details:

i took my son to the doctor a few weeks ago because i thought he had a bad case of post nasal drip which a doctor had diagnosed him with a couple of years ago. it makes him cough all night long and sometimes the incessant coughing makes him gag and gives him headaches on top of not getting any sleep.

turns out he may have chronic allergies and he is back to being nebulized every 4 hours during his coughing fits and also on a daily singulair therapy now to try to prevent the fits.

during his checkup the doctor noticed an irregular heartbeat. i told her that murmurs run on my side and on john's side of the family. she agreed that a murmur may be all it was but she didn't seem happy with that and wanted it to get checked by a pediatric cardiologist.

well that appointment was today.

they did an electrocardiogram and an echocardiogram. both showed an abnormality. apparently, his heart murmur is being caused by a hole in his heart (atrial). it's actually causing his heart to skip a beat and allowing oxygenated blood to mix with oxygen-poor blood in his heart.

the cardiologist has tasked me with keeping a holter monitor on my 4 year old for the next 24 hours to record his heart functions during his normal daily activities. i have to record in a diary every hour on the hour what he is doing and i also have to note whenever his activity level changes. the holter monitor looks like a fanny pack belted around his waist with a computer inside and it has 5 leads coming out of it attached to various spots on my son's chest. i guess he gets a reprieve from baths for the next 24 hours.

some time in the next few weeks i will take him back to the cardiologist for the infamous treadmill stress test to see how his heart handles the condition while under heavy physical activity.

i guess we'll know then how this will affect him. but in the meantime, i don't think i'll be sleeping all that well.