Good Afternoon All,

Nicole and I met with Dr. Long this morning to discuss the implanted loop recorder I mentioned last night.  After he spoke to Nicole yesterday he continued to research the ILR and learned that it is designed to begin recording anytime there is change in normal activity.  This means that it will only begin recording when her rate drops below the preset parameters or when it pauses.  What it will not do is record an entire days events.  Therefore, this type of monitor will only show us half of what we want to see.  Dr. Long is hypothesizing that the pauses are a result of the lowering heart rate.  He believes that as the brain begins to recognize that it is not under pressure any longer and her rate comes back into a normal range, the pauses will decrease in frequency and length.  Since the implanted monitor will not show what is going on every minute of the day, he does not feel it is worth the surgery to implant it, at least not for now. 

So, we are basically back at square one.  For me, trying to remain as the eternal optimist, I feel this is one more item that we have ruled out as an option.  In trying to solve a problem you can attack from several angles.  For me, marking off things that will not work is just one way of solving this problem.  We still do not know what WILL work as a monitoring system, but at least we know what WILL NOT work.  We spoke about the Polar training monitor that Kels has been on for a few days, and he told us not to use it.  First of all, it is designed to be used by teens to adult aged people, primarily during exercise.  We knew this, but we had to try it, as it was our most viable option at the time.  Since it is susceptible to many different types of interference, it is very hard to tell what is a heart pause or what is just white noise.  The halter monitor that we used after our first meeting with Dr. Long is not an option either because it has to be downloaded in their office after every 24 hours, and there is some much data it would be like looking for a needle in a hay stack.

Now what?  You tell me, becaue we don’t know.  I do know that Dr. Long is working very hard on finding a solution and even after only a few conversations with him, I trust his ability. 

I’m at work now trying to update the site, so I feel I may have left out some details.  When I get home later I will re-read this and most likely edit it to make the picture more clear.  Thanks for checking on Kelsey, I’ll let her know you stopped by.

A.