Heart Cath

Hi everyone!

I am jumping on really fast to talk about the heart cath but it won't be in great detail because it can get confusing!

Dr. Hill entered Ella's room after the heart cath with a smile on his face. Overall, it was a success! There were a couple of different things that Dr. Hill was checking on and a couple of different options that he had when in the cath. He discovered that the BT shunt that was put in during her second open heart surgery is now completely clotted, which they were expecting. They weren't really using it so it is not that big of a deal for the most part. Her body has created collateral veins in place of the shunt which he was excited about because that means that she was receiving blood to her lungs through those veins while he went into her Sano shunt (the main one that was placed back in April). The Sano is the shunt that was damaged during compressions and Dr. Hill saw that the end of it was almost "hanging off" but he was able to place a stent in the shunt to hold it all together. If the piece that was "hanging" (I put it in parentheses because I am not 100% clear on what that actually means) broke off, it would go directly to her brain and cause a stroke. Talk about STRESSFUL!!! I am so thankful that he is so good at what he does. We were praying that God would guide his hands and keep Ella safe. Dr. Hill said that he would normally hope to take the scope a little further into the shunt and release the stent there, but he wasn't able to so he took a gamble and it went where he needed it to!!! He was then able to open the shunt bigger to buy us more time before another surgery would be needed.

So overall, we are really happy! Matt said, "I wonder if, after the doctors/surgeons talk to the parents about what they've done in the labs/OR and they respond with an 'Ok, thank you!", they think, you have no idea what a big deal this is, I just saved your child's life." We often respond with an "Ok thank you!" because we really don't know how huge these things are. Praise God for this place and all of the amazing surgeons, doctors, anesthesiologists, nurses, respiratory therapists, and other staff members. We are so blessed by all of them!

Love,
Jillian