Heart Catheter and Surgery Date

Last Monday Ellie went in to the heart cath lab again. After she had her MRI done in February the cardiologists decided that they needed to evaluate her pressures in her heart through the catheter.

It was an early morning as we had to be up at the hospital by 6:00 and the time change the night before didn't help any. Ellie was a pro with everything, not being able to eat since the middle of the night, waking up and driving up to Salt Lake, and patiently waiting her turn to get prepped for surgery. But once someone stepped in with green scrubs on, it was over. Talking to her, just looking at her, would bring her to tears. She knows who these people are and she doesn't like them. In talking with the surgeon right before she went in, he informed me that he would be attempting to unblock one of the left pulmonary veins that they saw in the MRI that didn't have any blood flow in it. If he could do it, he would be the hero once again, and make the heart surgery alot less complicated. After all the needles I've seen that have been poked in to her and the other things she has gone through the hardest thing so far was to hand her over to the nurse to go in to the surgery room.

She was in surgery for a couple of hours and I was able to talk to the surgeon right after. Everything went well and things looked good. He didn't have to unblock the left pulmonary vein because it wasn't blocked afterall. Her heart pressures all looked good (whatever that means). They did find that she had some leaking just below where they placed the occluder in her left SVC back in October. Somehow the blood had found another vein to re-route itself in to so he placed another occluder close by to stop the blood flow. They were expecting to have her stay overnight to monitor her since she was under general anesthesia but I expressed my concern that we had another doctor's appointment the next day that we were anxious to make. Ellie did great post-operatively and we were able to go home that afternoon.

Ellie, Mike and I met with Dr. Pinto on Tuesday for a regular check up. She had gained a little weight finally so that was good news. Dr. Pinto had put in an order to request a surgery date in a month but after telling her that Ellie's breathing has been labored, she hasn't been eating as well, and she just seems to be having a harder time overall, she decided that she would move the request up to the first available. She was holding off because she wanted Ellie to grow some more, which she has just a bit, and because she wanted her to have the surgery outside of the sick season, which is hopefully coming to an end. She told us to wait for the surgery scheduler to call us.

After our appointment we brought Ellie home and for the rest of the afternoon and evening her breathing was really rapid and labored. We thought about taking her in to the ER but we knew she wasn't sick and taking her there would mean that they go through their normal routine of IVs, chest xrays, lab tests, etc. I did not want to have her go through all of that just to have someone listen to her breathe. We talked to the on-call doctor to see if there was any way around the ER, which there wasn't so we just decided that we would talk to Dr. Pinto in the morning since Ellie's breathing had stabilized a little.

On Wednesday I talked to Dr. Pinto and she thought the best thing would be to take her in for a chest xray and a limited echo. I had never seen the hospital so busy before. She had her xrays done and I ran in to Dr. Gray who did her surgery on Monday. I think he was concerned to see us there. It's always interesting to see the reaction of people as they take her xrays because of her occluders that are placed in her heart. They always wonder if she still has snaps on her clothing or something on her, even when she is naked. Once again, Ellie was such a great baby as we waited her turn for the echo. I guess that is one benefit of having a baby with a heart condition, they are really mellow most of the time. Dr. Pinto came in to listen to Ellie's heart and informed me that everything looks pretty much the same as when they did it last time. The only solution would be to give Ellie an extra dose of lasix to help her with her breathing. It all just boils down to her needing her surgery now.

It has been a week since our visit with Dr. Pinto and I have been anxiously waiting, jumping at every phone call, hoping that it would be the surgery scheduler. She finally called today with a date...April 12th, my birthday. I don't know if knowing her surgery date now will calm me any, or make me more nervous and anxious than I already have been. Now we just have to keep her healthy for another 3 weeks.