Cath Update

Owen finally came out of the cath lab at noon. His heart repair and flow looks great. Then came the crappy news.... his heart SQUEEZE isn't so great. It's the way your heart squeezes and relaxes with each beat. On top of that his tricupsid valve is moderatly leaky which means they may need to repair this with his next surgery. Then more news came... Dr. Pearl is pretty sure he's going to bump up the next surgery to late this week or early next week. SHOCKER!! So, they're probably going to keep him in the PICU until then. Hey... whatever they gotta do!

So we came in for a simple cath procedure and now this is what we end up with....

2IV's -- one in the hand for his milrinone (they started this because it helps the SQUEEZE) and it takes the workload off the heart. The other IV is in his foot for his blood transfusion -- this took the IV team 4 tries!!! I refused to let them use his other hand because it's comforting for him to chew on his fingers... poor guy is restricted enough. Then they zero'd in on his forehead... Don't even think about it!!!!

Oxygen -- Yep... Owen has never needed oxygen before, but we were told prior to the cath that sometimes they end up on oxygen afterwards. Let me just say that it is a full time job keeping him from ripping that oxygen cannula out of his nose.

He's got IV drips, NG feedings, blood transfusions, leads (to monitor his heartrate), bandages on both legs from where the cath went into his groin, and on top of that... diaper rash. POOR GUY!!!

So tonight he is resting comfortably thanks to morphine and tylenol. I decided to come home and get a little rest because he has two nurses all to himself tonight. How lucky can we get!

So much for a quick update. Tomorrow morning they are going to do an echo to check out the degree of his tricupsid valve leakage to see what they need to do to fix it. Then we'll hopefully get a surgery date for the Glenn. It's all happening so fast.