Jordan's Second Honeymoon

"Hello. My name is Dr. Brian Hanna and for the next three hours, I will be your tour guide."

As Dr. Hanna introduced himself, we were both honored and terrified that he drove an hour and a half to be here. We have heard that Dr. Hanna is considered to be the best pediatric cardiologist in the world. For at least the second time as parents, we received a quick tutorial plus a bonus sketch about our son's insides (we had this done with Caleb regarding a condition). The lesson hit like a tidal wave. We've just had instruction on the cardiovascular system by a world renown doctor. The lesson: our son has extremely severe hypertension. For the last two days, we have experienced Jordan's second honeymoon. This is the phase where the patient fools everyone into thinking they're doing okay when, in fact, they are suffering from pulmonary hypertension.

Jordan is very sick. They are waiting to see just how sick. The hope is that Jordan has enough blood vessels to relax in his lungs so they can grow and heal. The concern is that he does not have enough pulmonary vessels to relax and perform the exchange of oxygen. On a chart comparing blood pressures to the number of blood vessels, he showed us a scale ranging from "oh my God" to "normal" and circled "oh my God" for Jordan. The most important indicators they watch now are acid, urine and low blood pressure.

It is going to be a long night of tweaking and very close monitoring.