First Heart Cath

Wyatt had his first cath today. We had to stop feeding him formula at 4:00 this morning, then he was allowed pedialyte until 8 am. Waiting in his pre-op room wasn't so bad, and he was actually rather happy given he hadn't eaten in so many hours. I got to carry him from pre op to the cath lab, and then we had to hand him over. We each held him and kissed him about 100 times before handing him to the nurse with tears rolling down our faces. We have given informed consent before, we have handed him over before...it doesn't hurt any less the second time around.

He was in the cath lab for 2.5 hours, and things went really well. They did not find any narrowing that was causing any problems. He does have some small aortic narrowing, however it is visual narrowing not functional narrowing, and the velocity is the same above and below his aorta. He did have 3 collaterals (where the lungs sent out a hormone saying "hey! We're not getting enough oxygen...send us more!" So his body built these 3 new passage ways to get more blood to his lungs) so the doc put in occlusions to stop that blood flow. His body thinks it knows what it wants, but since he wasn't born with normal cardiac anatomy, it is wrong.

We then went to the PACU (post anasthesia care unit) for a little while where they just monitored him. They did let him eat and he ate like a champ! 2 ounces of pedialyte and 5 ounces of formula :) from there they sent us to the pediatric unit to finish out the required 4 hours of monitoring. His O2 sats were dropping real low there for a while, but as he wakes up more and more, they are getting better. The cardiologist is happy with everything and says that as soon as the nurses can get all the paperwork done we can go home :)

We are scheduled for his Glenn on February 13th and so long as he doesn't have any viruses, we are right on target for that. Getting his Glenn completed will get us out of interstage and onto a much more normal, steady life. Post Norwood the fatality rate for HLHSers is some 15% and post Glenn that number drops significantly to single digits. The months between the Norwood and the Glenn are the terrifying ones. Not that any of it isn't terrifying...

Steps 1 and 2 are done....now we just have to deal with great big ol scary step 3 here in a couple of weeks. Wyatt is strong and he is a fighter, and I know he's got this!