Samuel Update

This is a late in coming but with the weekend travels and preparations I did not have time to post this last Friday. Samuel's pediatrician did not see him for a follow-up visit but instead immediately referred him along to a pediatric cardiologist. One office could not schedule him until January 5th so we checked with another office on Friday morning and they just had a cancellation come in for that same morning so we were able to get him in. What an answer to prayer especially considering our limited time frame left here in the states. Samuel once again had an EKG done and everything was normal, no heart murmur could be heard so that was another good thing. The doctor really can't determine what is going on until we can catch an episode and record the rhythm on a heart monitor or EKG. He can obviously make some educated guesses, one of which he said that he has an electrical pathway that is shorting and causing the arrythmia or more technically Supraventricular tachycardia (SVT). SVT generally begins and ends quickly. Many people experience short periods of SVT and have no symptoms. However, SVT becomes a problem when it occurs frequently or lasts for long periods of time and produces symptoms. Samuel's episode lasted at least 45 minutes which is long but thankfully he did not have other symptoms in relation to breathing, pain, etc. We now have a heart monitor for the next 30 days in the event that he has another episode. Our prayer is that this would be a one time event for him and thus our need for concern would not be great as we return to Italy. Or we pray that he will have an episode while we have the monitor so that steps of treatment and analysis can be made prior to heading back overseas. We fully trust God in His timing, will and control over this situation. Thanks for praying!