Jessica's pulmonary doctor's visit

As I mentioned before, I took Jess to the pulmonary doctor on Monday. The pulmonary doctor felt that Jessica's lungs are doing quite well. Jess is on several asthma meds and they are doing a good job. yay! We discussed the morphine and Karl asked why it is preventing the lung bleeds. The doctor said that she honestly doesn't know but in other patients it has helped with hemoptysis (coughing up blood) but nobody knows exactly why. Possibly the morphine helps to relax the pulmonary arteries and lungs and therefore preventing the lung bleeds. Not many people have the exact same cardiac and pulmonary artery anatomy that Jessica does that are still alive so it has been challenging to know exactly how to help her. [hemoptysis can have many causes - for instance, my friend June has a son with cystic fibrosis and they have dealt with hemoptysis too] As we were talking with the doctor, Jessica's left leg started shaking. It does that from time to time and it looks like a tremor. This shaking lasts from 5 - 10 minutes usually is it bugs Jessica. We discussed what could be causing the tremors and we realized that it's always the left leg. The last (and worst) stroke causes paralysis on Jessica's left side and when Jessica is tired her left eye wanders more than when she is rested. Jessica had been up crying until 3am and then we had to get her up to go to the appointment byt 11:30am. So Jessica was overly tired and the leg tremors could possibly be residual effects from the stroke she had all those years go. The doctor asked us to try to see if there is a connection between her being tired and the leg tremors. Then the doctor asked what Jessica was drinking and it was her diet coke. Jess is only allowed one diet coke a day, she has to have it finished by 2pm (so it won't keep her awake at night) and some days she doesn't even have any. The doctor said that for someone with anxiety and sleep problems along with the tremors and heart arrhythmias should NOT have ANY caffeine. Poor Jessica started crying when we were driving back home. She loves her diet coke. We had discussed caffeine-free diet coke but the silly girl insists she loves her diet coke. We had 3 more diet coke bottles in the fridge and we told her that when they are gone - they are gone. We have come up with some alternatives to the diet coke and she has been off caffeine for 2 days now.

We talked to the doctor about the arrhythmias that Jessica has been experiencing and she said that if the peds cardiologists want to treat them with a beta-blocker, they need to contact her since they could potentially aggravate Jessica's asthma.