Long Day

Up at 6am this morning for a 7am cardiac cath, we just got back a short while ago from DC Children's. A 12 hour day becomes even longer when two hours after we were supposed to get out of there we are taking blood and having to give Lily the other kind of cath as she retained 250cc's of fluid after her morning cath. The poor baby looked like a prize fighter as her eyelids became swollen. Even as we sit here a few hours later, her left eyelid is still looking like it took a few right hooks.

But all in all it was a very good day. The cardiac cath took under three hours and that included the anaesthesia. Think of the procedure as a map of the heart, complete with pictures and a little touch up if need be. Dr. Kanter, who had performed the previous cath on Lily, said her heart looked perfect and he didn't need to do a thing to get it ready for Dr. Jonas to operate on it on Monday. That is great news. Prior to the Glenn, Dr. Kanter had to insert a balloon into Lily's aorta to widen it. Didn't have to do a thing this time.

Around noon we met with Dr. Jonas. He was very upbeat and walked us through the entire Fontan procedure. Oddly enough, the central piece of the Fontan surgery will be a permanent tube that connects the inferior vena cava just underneath where the bidirectional Glenn attached the superior vena cava to the pulmonary artery. That tube is made of GoreTex, the material many top notch running suits used to be made out of-but I digress. So if you think of the Norwood procedure (the first one) as making the heart operational, the bidirectional Glenn (second surgery) regulates the blood flow of the upper body and the Fontan regulates the blood flow of the lower body, thus completing the three step process of rebuilding Lily's heart. It's amazing what guys with a gift like Dr. Jonas can do.

Because things went so well today, we did not have to spend the night at the hospital and get tomorrow and Sunday off. Then it's up at 5am, at the hospital by 6am for the 7:30 surgery slot, the first of the day on Monday.