Monday, October 29, 2012

All Done

Sam's cath is over!  He did great.  Everything went pretty much as expected, and the doctor seemed pretty happy with Sam's overall heart function.  While his left pulmonary artery is still stubbornly small, Sam has good pressures and a large right pulmonary artery.  According the cath doctor, Sam is a likely candidate for the Fontan surgery--the third and hopefully final major open-heart surgery.  Also, the cath doctor is hoping that Sam will not need further intervention until the Fontan.

Here is a picture from the cath--you can see the difference in size between the left and right pulmonary arteries (dyed for the cath):


What is perhaps most alarming about this picture is that there appears to be a small, dark swan swimming around in Sam's upper ribcage.  Hmm.

Because of the discrepancy between his left and right pulmonary arteries, however, Sam will likely experience some complications after his Fontan and have a lengthy hospital stay (at least a month), but he is squarely in the candidate range.  He just needs to keep growing and gain about five more pounds.  In the world of hypoplastic left heart syndrome, this is what we call cautiously optimistic news.  My favorite moment with the doctor, though, was when he told us that Sam is a "very popular guy around here."  He is a pretty popular guy with us, too.



Right now, Sam is playing with his portable DVD player.  He just sucked down some Pediasure and seems to be feeling alright, though a bit out of it.  His many "friends" in the cardiac progressive care unit were quite excited to see him, and even more excited that he managed to stay out of the hospital for so long. With a little luck, in a couple of hours he'll snuggle up with Wubbie, get a good night's sleep, and go home tomorrow so he can get back to his favorite hobby: sitting on the cat.

Thank you for all of your prayers, wishes, and good thoughts.

6 comments:

  1. We are so glad to hear Sam's cath was successful, and we are praying for him. We missed seeing his smiling face in school today, and are looking forward to when he returns.

    Christina and Brian Clarke (Keira's parents).

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  2. Yay Sam!! We am so glad everything went well today! Rest up this week so you can come back to school next week! We will miss you and be thinking about you!

    Ms Adrienne and Ms Morgan!

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  3. yea! what a trooper!! he is seriously so cute. we miss you so much. xoxo, jules, joe, & max

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  4. This is such great news - I was thinking about your family all day! I hope you have a restful night and are able to head home tomorrow. I'll keep all of you in my prayers!

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  5. So glad to hear it all went well. And even better to see that you are back home. Hugs!

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  6. We miss you Sam! Can't wait for you to be back at school. Mis Jen- Director

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