Finally, they take me seriously!

For the last year or so, Jack's lips have been turning blue when he's cold and/or cold & active. Not just around the lips, but his entire lips would turn blue or purple. I brought this up several times to his primary physician (& the cardiologist from 2012), and he mostly brushed it off. The last time I brought it up, he finally wrote a scrip for a finger pulse ox. Well, I decided to just get one online for $30. :)

We went on vacation to Florida, and that's where it was really visible. Jack would play in the pool, and his lips would turn purple. One time when I put the oximeter on his finger, it calibrated and was down to 88%. I freaked (in my extremely calm way), and ordered him to get in the hot tub until he warmed up. I contacted his primary with the information, then my phone died and I had to wait for a new one to come in. Long story short, we got an echocardiogram & EKG set up for right after Jack & his brother got home from vacation in California, in August.

The echo & EKG went well; everything was normal. The cardiologist (who I later found out is the head of cardiology at Dayton Children's) talked to us for a while about what COULD be wrong. I insisted a stress test be done, so we set that up.

THAT was interesting! Jack did really well, and ran for the full 10 minutes. One thing both the doctor & I noticed was that the more Jack exerted himself, the lower his blood pressure went. However, during recovery time, his blood pressure went up.

The cardiologist talked to me afterward; Jack has Autonomic Response Dysfunction. Basically, his brain's signals to his body are backward. Or weird. When Jack gets cold, his lips turn blue (most peoples lips don't turn blue when they're slightly chilly; I'm not talking FREEZING here). When Jack exercises, his BP goes down (the opposite of the majority of people!). Sometimes when it's warm, Jack will be cold. Sometimes when it's cold, Jack will be warm.

*shrug* It's something that's not terribly serious right now, but could become a problem as he gets older. So the cardiologist said he'll see us again in 2 years. :)

Just when you think it's over......lol