A Good Morning

It's been an eventful day so far, in a good way. Since Owen was still having so much trouble this morning, his surgeon and cardiologist decided to take him to the cath lab and have a look at his heart. As it turned out, the connection the surgeon had made yesterday between the inferior vena cava and the right pulmonary artery had significantly narrowed. The cardiologist placed a stent to widen that connection, and immediately Owen's sats increased to the 80s. This is great news!

He is coming out of the cath lab and getting settled back in the PICU right now. He is still on the ventilator right now, since he was already fatigued from breathing so hard overnight, and now anesthesia has been added on top of that. So he'll stay on it and take a little break for now, but it likely will not be long before they take it out.

We did learn something else from this cath. Owen's pulmonary pressures were much higher than acceptable, and they remained high after the stent was placed. This is going to be a "wait and see" situation as to whether they'll ever decrease. In the meantime, there are medications that can treat this.

With the placement of the stent and the high pulmonary pressures, we are definitely looking at another cath in the future to check these out, and possibly place a larger stent as Owen grows. But compared to open heart surgery, we'll take it!

It's been a good morning, and we're looking forward to seeing Owen be much more comfortable once he is settled and off the vent.

-Adrienne