Now how does this happen?
Zoe has been extremely protective of her cath procedure site and has not wanted me to come near it or even look at it. I left the plastic bandage/cover on for an extra day so that we could put her in the bath and soak it off. Unfortunately it wouldn’t all come off and so a few days ago I had to pull the remainder of the stuff off. It’s no wonder she won’t let me near anything that hurts or is sensitive…..the adhesive on the bandage stripped off a chunk of her skin. OUCH! This is not the first time this has happened. I don’t know if it’s bad luck or if her skin is extra willing to stay stuck to adhesive but this happens a lot. A couple days ago I finally forced her to let me look at that area thinking I should be dilligent and check out her cath site for infection. The cath site is FINE but where her skin got taken off is not. It was red and slightly swollen. It took all forms of coersion to let me near it and apply cream and a bandaid but when I went to replace the bandaid it stuck extra hard to her skin (see what I mean) and really smarted when it came off. We literally had to have family prayer time around her to get her to let me touch the area again and even then she squirmed and tried to get the bandaid off. We finally got it on, put a new diaper in place and pajamas and off to bed. As I left her room after tucking her in I looked down and found this
So much for the bandaid.
Final analysis
The final analysis of her cath procedure is in and it’s good. It has been decided that she does have some very mild narrowing in one of her arteries but they are not calling it coronary artery disease as it has not changed in the last year and they feel there’s a possibility it is just an anomaly the heart already had and not a disease process.
Her EKG’s throughout showed some changes but not enough to be called abnormal and her stress echo was excellent. As I said before, she will remain with the heart monitor until sometime in January. We really need her to have another episode before the monitor gets sent back. My worst fear is that she will have one a few days after we send the thing back.
We will be doing labs but aren’t scheduled for another echo or clinic appointment until February.
Other than that we’re just preparing for Christmas and enjoying the few days of sunshine we’ve been given.
Home
We got released around 7:00 tonight and Zoe is home sleeping. She did very well and although cranky after the procedure she perked up by the time we left.
The preliminary results looked very good. Her stress echo looked great without any strange heart rhythms and although they can see some narrowing of one segment of artery it is unclear as to whether that was an anomoly the heart already possessed before transplant (I feel they definitely are leaning this way). From what they saw it doesn’t look any different from a year ago and that is what they were hoping for. They will look at the video frame by frame this week and let us know for sure. That is the good news and ironically also the bad news. There was no indication of why she has had the episodes and they are concerned enough that the heart monitor will remain. He explained that subtle symptoms are actually more concerning than more obvious ones because it is very difficult to figure out what is happening. However, because her cath looked so good they are reassured and she will be given the benefit of the doubt in the future meaning they will not immediately hospitalize her when it happens again or if her heart rate drops below 100 bpm. Again, we will know more later this week after the pages and pages of EKG’s are analyzed as well as the measurements taken.
A morning of miracles
What an amazing morning! Zoe napped from 9 until we had to leave for the hospital so she only asked for food once and water once. Each time I explained she had to have an empty stomach for her surgery and she’d respond with, “oh, sorry mom”. She was in a fantastic mood when we got to the hospital and was not at all anxious or crabby. She happily played in the pre-op room and once again was assigned her favorite nurse Amy to be with her during the surgery. Paul carried her back to the operating room and said that even there she was calm and happy. Her surgery also started an HOUR EARLY. For anyone whose child has had a surgery you know the magnitude of this miracle; think the virgin birth. I guess every child on the morning docket for her doctor was sick and had their surgeries canceled.
The biopsy portion of her procedure is complete and they are doing her stress echo right now. She should be done very soon and then we can start the recovery time process and hopefully be on our way after dinner.
Surgery day
I woke Zoe up at 4:30 this morning to start eating since she can’t have food from 5am on. So what do you do with a kid starting at 4:30am?
She ate a little breakfast
Played with (tortured) the cat
And did a little trapeze work
She’s currently conked out taking a little nap. We’ll go check in at 11:30.
