Being away from Children’s hospital for the last 2 weeks has made us forget just how incredible of a place it is, and how much everyone cares for not just the patients, but the families. Since Friday evening we have been back in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit at Children’s Hospital, as Judah’s heart rate and oxygen levels had been dipping and jumping inexplicably. The doctors have been monitoring him and adjusting medication levels, but the key thing they wanted to do was bump up an appointment we already had set for later this month to get Judah into the Cath Lab for a Heart Catheterization.
A Heart Cath give the doctors a chance to look closely at Judah’s heart, from the inside. The Echo’s that they do give them a good idea of the heart’s functionality and how it looks from the outside, but a cath is needed to really see inside, and what they saw inside told them a lot about the problems Judah has been having.
After a couple of days of monitoring, we were finally able to get our Cath day bumped up from the 15th to Today. Looking deep into Judah’s heart the doctors saw a couple of things they suspected when he had his surgery, but they had the opportunity to fix them now that he has grown a little. Inside Judah’s heart the pressure rates were all messed up due to a narrowing in his Pulmonary Artery’s right branch. During the cath they were able to place a stent into his artery to help the flow of oxygenated blood. The doctors showed us before and after images and pressure charts, and the difference is incredible.
Judah had to be sedated and intubated for the procedure, but we are confident that he will recover from this quickly, and it will push his overall recovery and growth into a new high gear, now that he will not have to work so hard to eat or play. The doctors will allow Judah to sleep through the night and keep him comfortable, and let him wake up tomorrow morning and take over breathing on his own in order to remove the breathing tube as quickly as he can take. The nurses all missed Judah so much, and although they are happy to see him and us, we all wished it hadn’t been again so soon. We hope and pray for an easy night for J-N-J. We will continue to keep you all updated of his most immediate, as well as long term recovery.