Cath Number 8!!

We had an early morning in preop. Owen was fascinated by the frost on our windows as we pulled out of the hotel parking lot. As soon as we walked into the Ford Surgery Center at LPCH, Owen says "Ah.. I knew it.. NOT this place... I hate this place!" All of the memories of past surgeries came rushing back and this is how he feels about it.

All joking aside, he has been such a rockstar!  He patiently waited with Daddy while in preop and watched his Spiderman episodes on Netflix. He cooperated for his vitals and talked to all his nurses. Requested the strawberry gas from the anesthesiologist. Speaking of Anesthesia.. our favorite is on his case today!! YAY! She is so sweet with Owen and she is thorough. Owen woke up from his last cath very violent, had minimal trunk control and was biting/scratching/hitting. He was completely out of character and irrational. This was the only time he had a reaction like that, so I wanted his past records reviewed before giving him anesthesia today. Dr R. did just that and found that they gave him a high dose steroid during his last cath that was intended to help with his post cath nausea. No more steroids and we knocked his Versed dose in half.. so he hardly got any pre med.

After we gave his body a full scrubdown with sterile wipes, we had to gown up to escort him into the cath lab. Carson was joking that he looked like one of the guys on "Breaking Bad". If you aren't familiar with the show.. think meth lab.  We looked awesome.  If you know Stanford, then you know that you start in preop surgical waiting and the cath lab is about a mile away on the other side of the adult hospital.  So we rocked our outfits up the elevator and all the way across the hospital.  Owen thought we were HILARIOUS!!  But he also had happy juice.. aka.. Versed.

See?  The half dose was fully effective and he was a riot!  The nurses were laughing so hard as we escorted him to the cath lab.  Owen was so sweet when we walked in the cath lab.  There are a ton of doctors, anesthesia team and radiology techs around and it can be really confusing and scary.  Not for this guy!  He just chatted with them all and then when it was time for the gas mask, he requested to hold it himself and went right to sleep.  Honestly.. he didn't even need us.  He was so brave. 

One of Owen's anesthesiologists told him that they have many little elves that live in the hospital and they report back to Santa each night and tell him how brave they are. He thought that was amazing and so now I have a feeling we are going to have one very BRAVE boy!! He seriously is so amazing. SO the plan is to check pressures and do intervention as necessary. The anticipated time is "2 hours 23 minutes". I'll update post recovery.