Iron Man's Doctor

Graysen is absolutely obsessed with Iron Man. He pretends that he is Iron Man during about 75% of the day. He likes to shoot at people, even strangers such as the guy at Costco who checks the member cards.

It is very convenient that Iron Man has a special heart too and just so happens to go to the same PC as Graysen! It made this morning's visit much easier and Graysen cooperated much more than usual. The PC has two 5 year old grandsons and knows all about Iron Man. He even flew around the room on a jet pack?! Also, as we were walking into the office, Graysen saw a helicopter in the sky and said, "Bye bye Iron Man." It turns out that is how Iron Man travels too and from his heart appointments.

Graysen's heart is doing OK and is meeting expectations for this type of defect. However, he continues to have high pulmonary pressures which are putting a strain on his right ventricle. It is desired that the pressure of the right ventricle be 25% of systemic systolic pressure, but the PC believes that Graysen's RV pressure is more like 50-70%. Also, his RV is "D" shaped instead of symmetrical and the septum is moving in the wrong direction due to volume overload.

All of this means that it is time for a heart cath to 1) clean out the bovine conduit which is causing the problem and 2) a heart cath is the best way to get a complete picture of what is going on with his heart. The heart cath will be scheduled at MUSC for the "next available cath date." Knowing MUSC, that means that the cath will most likely take place in November.

The good news is that the PC does not expect that the conduit will need to be replaced (open-heart surgery) until Graysen is 4-5 years old. The cath will clean out this conduit, giving it another year or so of life.