Cardiac Ultrasound -- Thursday late morning?

The cardiac ultrasound told us a lot. Hyatt has Cardiomyopathy, or an enlarged and weakened heart. As was explained to us, normal hearts are about the size of one's fist....and the beat of the heart pushes out about 80-85% of the blood on each beat. But, Hyatt's heart is approximately twice the size of a normal heart and cannot squeeze as tightly, so it pushes out only 20-25% of the blood in its chambers on each beat. Troy felt like this explains Hyatt's low blood pressure and perhaps her odd odd reactions to stress (he mentioned that stress generally comes from her husband doing stupid things).

Lots of possible causes for the enlargement, and the cardiologist felt it could have been enlarged for a very long time. Sometimes genetic, sometimes from a bad viral or bacterial infection, sometimes from a pregnancy. Apparently many people have this condition and don't know it until the heart just stops working. On the bright side, many people live long, normal lives with this condition because it IS manageable through proper care and medication. So some time around this point, the doctors started thinking that perhaps the heart failure causes the rest of the problems, and not the reverse.

The ultrasound also revealed another problem -- some air outside of the lung. This seemed a major concern; the worry is that if a hole in the lung (maybe from the EMS work, maybe from acid damage) was causing this, they may need emergency surgery. A growing bubble would further damage the lungs and heart.

-PN