Hospital Stay- Cath

We are happy to say our hospital stay after the cath was just 1 night, as expected.  Evin had a pretty good night after the cath and would have slept through the night, but the nurses had to wake her every 4 hours to take her vitals.  Poor girl learned quickly that she does not like the blood pressure cuff and would start crying whenever she saw it.  Because she was woken up and usually got upset, she would decide she was hungry as well.  It made for a not-so-restful night for all of us!  

We spoke with the surgeon's nurse before we left and she said that the surgery team had conferenced about Evin the night before, and everything is set to move forward with the full repair on Tuesday.  She said several times that her surgeon would review the cath results and her previous echos over and over and over in preparation for the surgery.  She said he is obsessive about his patients and preparing for surgery.

We thought we were going to be discharged early on Thursday morning, but we ended up not getting out of there until almost 2:00.  She was sent home on "light activity," so no push ups or crunches (ha!), and no tub baths for 3 days.  We can do a sponge bath, but her cath site cannot be submerged in water for 3 days.  Stinky girl!

We were all so happy to get home!  Evin seemed pleased to get to sit in her swing and bouncer again and was all smiles.

I didn't include photos in the previous post about her cath, so here are pictures from our hospital stay:

Early morning, waiting to be taken back for the cath.

Reading a few books to pass the time.  She loves to be read to!

Sweet baby right after she was moved to the recovery room.  Very pale and a little swollen.

Sweet smiles!

Happy to be holding my girl again.

Evin and her grandparents.

Sporting what looks like an awful spray tan here.  The dye the used in the cath got all over her legs and belly.  We were told not to try to scrub it off, and that it will fade away after a few days.

Excited to see her daddy.

You can really tell how swollen her little face is here.

Feeling better the next day!

Cath

Today went well.  It actually went better than I expected, and it feels good to be typing that out!

We arrived bright and early at Cook’s.  They took Evin around 8:00am, got started around 9:00, and came to tell us that she was finished and doing well around 10:00.  It was a quicker process than the 4 hours that we were originally told.

As the doctor put it, “Everything looked like we thought it would, and there were no surprises.”  They really wanted to get a good look at her pulmonary arteries to see how big they were.  Her left artery appears to be of decent size and probably won’t have to have any augmentation during surgery.  Her right one is pretty small and will most likely require a patch of some sort during surgery.  Her shunt is nice and open and is flowing really well.

We have been told several times up until this point that a decision will probably not be made regarding her pulmonary valve until during surgery, but we went ahead and asked how it looked in the cath.  The doctor said that you can tell it is pretty narrow, but it is hard to tell exactly how narrow.  He said that we should probably expect that it will need to be repaired during surgery, but that he couldn’t get a really good look at it to know for sure.

Evin was brought to her recovery room around 11:00 and I was surprised at how good she looked.  She was pretty pale and was hoarse from being intubated, but she was very alert and gave out a few smiles right away.  Tough girl!

She had to lay flat for 4 hours (which she slept for a good part of this time) and then we were allowed to hold her as we usually do. 

She is definitely fussier than she has ever been, but I am so amazed at how quickly she has bounced back.  She has smiled, played with toys and “talked” more than I imagined she would after what she went through this morning.

We are settling in for the night and hope to be discharged early in the morning so we can get home and all get some real rest!

Thanks to all who have kept Evin in their thoughts and prayers.  They mean SO much to our family!

Cath Pre-Op

Evin had pre-op for her cardiac cath this afternoon.  We were there for a little over 4 hours.  They actually combined the pre-op for her cath and the pre-op for her surgery, all into today.  Her surgery is scheduled for Tuesday, September 3^rd, the day after Labor Day, so they decided just to do pre-op for it today instead of having us come back in on Friday when we will just have left on Thursday. 

Waiting to go into our room.

I am so proud of how well Evin did today.  She only fussed a few times and then got really upset once when they drew her blood.  I don’t blame her a bit, as I got upset too!  This was probably the most upset I have ever seen her, and man, it was rough. 

Today they checked her vitals, got her height & weight, drew blood, took a chest x-ray and we filled out LOTS of paperwork.

Before all the tests got started...hence the smile!

Here were her stats from today:

Weight:  12 lbs 14 oz
Height:  25.2 inches (I have a feeling she was pretty generous in measuring this)

O2 Sats:  91

Poor baby after getting her blood drawn.

They gave us quite a bit of information about the procedure tomorrow and her surgery next week.  We briefly chatted with quite a few nurses, nurse practitioners, and the anesthesiologist. 

We arrive at 6:45 in the morning (yuck), and we expect that the cath should take about 4 hours.  We will be moved to a room with Evin afterwards, and will stay the night with her.  We hope to be (and should be) discharged Thursday.

Showing today's battle wound (on her arm) when we got home.

Please pray for our little girl.  We are extremely anxious about everything that she will endure over the next few weeks.  We are so thankful for any thoughts and prayers sent her way.