Today's cath

For all those liking at the big picture only, today's heart cath went really well... Better than expected and that's a huge relief for us.

The reason for the cath was that the echocardiogram ( ultrasound of the heart and surrounding blood vessels) showed a narrowing of the aorta which was repaired during the first surgery in two spots as well as a little sagging near the middle, which the doctors thought was an aneurism. Well, if that was an aneurism and the narrowing was significant enough to require opening up/ stretching/ or ballooning, it would not be possible to do it via catch because the risk of the aneurism braking and causing internal bleeding and damage was too great and the narrowing would have to be fixed in a more drastic fashion like placing a stent or even surgically.

However, the cath showed that heart function was excellent, the pressures in the artery is good, and the narrowing not significant enough that it required intervention. Even our cardiologist came to the cath lab to see the pictures himself (additional benefit of having a centralized health care for Jasiu, his medical team all under one roof). This is a huge relief because the worst case scenario was that he would need another surgery (unplanned in case of
HLHS) to fix this issue. But for now this is not an issue, thank you Lord.

What they did find are collateral vessels, these are veins that sometimes grow around the actual veins and arteries and they may even 349-1756grow large enough to redirect blood. Jasiu's collaterals were carrying blood back to the lungs instead of the rest of the body and that was not good for him so they coiled I think two of the large ones. This means they put metal, platinum really, clips to block off the blood flow. Since this was an intervention during the cath, we as in Jasiu, has to stay in the hospital overnight for observations only.

The whole procedure lasted about 3 hours and this time we were only in recovery area for only one hour since there was a room for us on the floor. Compared to the tiny procedure center recovery rooms, the Hope 2nd floor patient rooms are like grand hotel suites, complete with cable and a mini fridge and your own bathroom. Quite luxurious, hahaha.

Anyways, Jasiu took it like a champ. We had a small issue during the preach vitals and thanks to mommys intuition we avoided a pretty large mistake from happening. Of all things it was a weight issue. When they weighed him they got 7.16 kilos but because we are now weighing him i
In pounds at home I did not have time to recalculate from kilos to poinds, then comes in the doctor and we talk about his meds history and get to weight, and he looks at the nurses report, I look at my notes and mention that I'm not sure how much this is in pounds... He says just multiply by 2.2 ( which I know just haven't actually done it yet) and says "7*2=14 plus .2*.14 ehh around 15. WHAT!!!!!! No way, this kid weighed 19 and 12 ounces YESTERDAY, grant it it was on my scale I bought at BabiesRus but almost 5 pound difference is huge especially for a baby. So the doctor weighs him laying down, 8.98 kilos, ok, then we weigh him sitting on the scale like the original way, 7.5 kilos, we do another set and each time we were a whole kilo off, now the doc was shocked. A kilo or 2.2 pounds on a baby is a huge huge difference, especially for a kid who is about to be put under anesthesia, a hypoplast under anesthesia based on weight, drugs administered based on weight, etc . I think this could have been a disaster, so we finally found a new bigger scale and got 9 kilos, about 19 pounds 12 ounces. Now that's more like it. Plus he doesn't look like he was 15 pounds for months now.

After they were done we got to go see him finally . I was so excited about the good news we got from the cath doctor I left my new iPhone in the waiting room plugged in charging for a good 15 minutes before I realized it wasn't in my possession. It wasn't until a good dose of Tylenol and a nice long nap that we got our first half smiles and then the full blown Jasiu 1000 watt smile. He was also eating pretty decently considering he was intimated and sounds like he either is a 50 year old smoker with a caugh and a horse voice or he was out partying all night and lost his voice. He sounds miserable and sometimes the look he gives us just brakes my heart of the pain he must be feeling. It was the worst feeling of the day when they wheeled him to the back in the crib with complete strangers and he was crying and looking back at us with fear and confusion kind of like "mommy daddy help me" and we couldn't do anything. As he gets older and older I only think that it will keep getting harder and harder handing him over like that. I am dredding it already.

Now he's sleeping again and resting. Hopefully nothing changes overnight and we get to go home tomorrow as planned.

Thank you for the prayers and good thoughts and keep them coming.