Coils

Heart cath #3 is donedonedone! What a relief to have that behind us. We have jumped over another hurdle, in this journey filled with lots of hurdles.
 
Yesterday went very well. The procedure itself took longer than expected, but everything went great and Elijah was a "superstar," as Dr. Gremmels calls him. Dr. G ended up putting eight coils into the collateral arteries that surround E's heart/lungs in order to stop the bloodflow in them. There were a few areas where the collaterals were supplying duplicate bloodflow to his lungs, so the smaller of all the duplicates were the ones coiled off. These coiled collaterals will no longer deliver blood and will shrivel up. The metal coils will stay in his chest forever. Now the bloodflow in his chest is much more efficient and there isn't as much "mixing" of red and blue blood. This is good because his body won't be working as hard to get all of that unnecessary blood pumping everywhere. Now his blood-oxygen saturations will be much lower, but this will be "normal" for him until his next open heart surgery when his VSD (hole) will be repaired. Anything between 80-85% will be good for Elijah right now. Before this cath, they were running around 90%, which was too high for him. Dr. G also ballooned a portion of Elijah's main pulmonary artery that was a bit narrow. Hopefully that artery will continue to grow nice and big.
 
When his next open heart surgery will take place will be based on how he grows in the next year. If he continues to eat like a starved lion in the wild and continues to gain weight, he will outgrow the shunt that is acting as his pulmonary valve sooner rather than later. Our way of determining if he is outgrowing that shunt will be his blood-oxygen sats. When those start to creep down toward the 70% mark, surgery will be necessary. Dr. G thinks this may happen anywhere from 6 months to a year, depending on how chunky he continues to get.
 
Elijah did great yesterday. He was understandably crabby for a few hours after the procedure. He was tired, hungry (he hadn't eaten since 3:00 that morning) and in a little discomfort. Once we took care of those three things, he was doing great. We were finally able to feed him at 6:00 last night, and we have never seen anything like the ravenous hunger that he unleashed on those poor bottles. Wow! He just kept eating and eating and when we added everything up, he'd had a whole typical day's worth of food in less than 12 hours! He'd get done with a bottle and just cryyyyyy till we gave him more. Then we tried solids and he gobbled those up. Then an hour or so later he was gobbling down more bottles. The boy does not like to miss a meal....and if he does, he apparently needs to make up for it.

Oh and I'm happy to report that all of our nurses were wonderful!


Daddy and Eli snoozing before surgery


Mommy reading to Elijah after surgery


Some things never change no matter how bad he's feeling....reaching for everything in sight....


...and vigorously eating the tag on his rattle..


Our penthouse suite on the 3rd floor


We're always so glad when we get a room on this floor. We have our own private space. That couch you see in the background is what Dan and I squish onto at night. We've slept on MUCH worse at the hospital, so this is wonderful to us.


Tonight, feeling much better. It's so amazing how quickly these little ones bounce back. Lately Elijah has been swinging his arms around at lightning speed. The camera couldn't even capture them!