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!