A Trip to the ER

*sigh*

Yesterday afternoon, evening, and early this morning, we were in the ER. Bailey had some bad chest pains that did not resolve with rest. So after consulting with the Cardiologist, we decided to take him to the ER. When we got there, it was busy (as is the case with most ER's). Apparently one of his EKG's did not come out as expected so of course, it was back to the beds we went. They drew some blood, which is always a traumatic experience for Bailey. They decided to place an IV in case he needed to be transported to San Diego. The blood tests came back okay. The ER doctor told us that after speaking with Bailey's Cardiologist, they suspect Bailey may have angina. So of course Ed and I were very scared.

So we were given discharge orders at about 3 in the morning. We came home, starving, ate, stayed up to digest our food and headed to bed about 430 in the morning. We finally heard back from his Cardiologist around 9 in the morning. This is what she had to say:

I don't think he had angina. All of his cardiac enzymes were normal.
The cardiac enzymes are the gold standard. His heart did not have
insufficient blood supply. If the doctor truly thought he had angina,
he wouldn't/shouldn't have sent him home. This is an adult ER physician
trying to take care of a child with congenital heart disease and is out
of his realm of expertise thus his panic. He treated him like an
adult/old person having chest pain. So don't panic!

That being said, let's make plans to do additional testing to prove his
coronaries are OK. I'll get the ball rolling today and touch base with
you with times/dates. Bailey should be able to go to school. Restrict
him from sports until this evaluation is complete.

Afterwards, I e-mailed her again and this was her response:

No problem. I can only imagine how freaked out the ER doctor was and
how freaked out he made you! He was in a tizzy when we spoke at around
midnight.

Yes, I think he didn't have the luxury of knowing Bailey's baseline ECG
and has little to no experience with a child with Bailey's kind of
heart. Angina at rest is called "atypical angina" and is exceedingly
rare. Bailey doesn't have a mechanism to have atypical angina. He
doesn't have coronary artery disease like an old person. If he had
ischemia/not enough blood flow it's because his heart would be working
so hard it couldn't get enough oxygen out of the normal amount of
coronary blood flow. We just echo'd Bailey. His heart is working hard.
So, while exercise can make his heart work hard and you could see that
he might have chest pain at that point it is hard to imagine any
situation that while he's resting and not stressing his heart that it
would be unable to extract enough oxygen. It just doesn't make sense in
Bailey's situation. Again, his cardiac enzymes were normal confirming
this. This is an adult ER physician applying the adult situation to a
kid with congenital heart disease.

Don't panic. Will touch base again later. Yes, no karate.

So although Bailey is not happy about having to put karate aside for a bit, we are glad he is okay. Thank goodness he has such a wonderful Cardiologist. We wouldn't know what to do otherwise.