Pulmonary Visit

-Daniel had his first appointment in the Pulmonary Clinic today. (The first in 3 years.) This visit was a follow-up since Daniel saw the pulmonary specialist while he was in the hospital 2 weeks ago. We discussed long term preventive care for Daniel's asthma, allergies and reflux. There are 2 major concerns right now. Daniel's heart is enlarged, very specifically the right side of his heart is enlarged which is a sign of pulmonary hypertension. The swallow study that was done 2 weeks ago while Daniel was in the hospital showed an "abnormal swallow". He did not aspirate while in a normal, sitting, eating position but his swallow was not "normal" either. This could could mean that Daniel is aspirating some, especially at night when laying down. Dr. Droemer and Dr. Robinson both feel that the next step should be doing a sleep study on Daniel. The sleep study will hopefully give a lot of answers.....Is Daniel desatting while sleeping? If so how low is his oxygen saturation dropping and how long is it staying down? What is causing the desaturation? Aspiration? Obstructive apnea? Lung function? All 3? There are many things that could happen once we know the result of the sleep study. If Daniel is aspirating he will then see a GI and a feeding therapist and together the medical team will work to solve the aspiration issue (this could be some trial and era). If it is obstructive apnea, Daniel will see an ENT and possibly have his tonsils removed. If it is a combination of all 3 then we will "tackle" all 3 problems as quickly as possible. Daniel's medicines will stay the same for now - Flovent, Zantac, Prevacid, Singular and Zyrtec daily and Albuterol as needed. Daniel will see an allergy specialist on September 21 and will have allergy testing some time after that. We do not know when the sleep study will be scheduled for yet but should know by the end of the week. Dr. Droemer and Dr. Robinson would like Daniel to have the sleep study done before seeing the allergy specialist. While some of the things (enlarged heart) we heard today from the doctor scares us we are also thankful that we seem to be headed in the right direction to finding out the cause of Daniel's yucky lungs and finding the right preventive plan. Please pray with us for Daniel and the team of doctors involved in Daniel's care.