Wisdom Heart

The cath went very well. It took most of the day. But for the most part, everything went as planned.
We got to the hospital at 7:30am, checked in at admitting and went straight to the cath lab.
After some preliminary vitals and consent forms, they gave Sophia a dose of Versed. It wasn't long before she was completely snockered. At this point, anesthesia came and got her.
We went to the waiting room and waited. It took quite a long time to get everything in place. Just the anesthesia, IVs, ventilator, etc. took 45 minutes. Then they have to get the catheters started. This time the catheters were not too difficult to get in her veins. In case you are unfamiliar with heart catheterization, they access the heart and its great vessels via the veins in the groin. So form the time they get access until they get the ends of the catheters up to the heart can also take some time. Sophia had 4 catheters, 2 in each leg, I think.
If you remember, the plan was to open up a narrow section of Sophia's right pulmonary artery using two stents placed tandomly where the artery branches toward the right lung. The narrowing was substantial. In fact, it was so narrow it was difficult to get even one of the catheters through it. In order to complete the procedure it required two catheters with balloons be placed in the vessel.
So the doctor first had to widen the vessel in order to make room for the catheters to pass through. He did this by stretching the narrow part of the artery using the balloon on the end of the first catheter. Once he stretched it enough to get both catheters through, he had to place stents over the balloons and position them just right before the balloons would be inflated, expanding the stents.
This was tricky, of course, as was the whole procedure. But here is what made the positioning difficult. The stents were parallel in the vessel. The vessel was stretched just enough to fit the stents into it. Therefore, as one of the stents needed to be shifted forward or back, it would move the other in that same direction.
Anyway, they were eventually positioned properly. This was really the most critical part, as the positioning of the stents was crucial to get the results we wanted without complications. The sizes of stents used were a 5mm and 6mm. If you remember, I had posted the size of the narrow part of the artery was about 2mm (this was confirmed). And the goal was to stretch it to 10-12mm.
The doctor expanded both stents by inflating the balloons at the same time, expanding the stents completely. At this point, one of the balloons burst. This was of course a concern. It was explained to us this morning, if the balloon bursts it can catch on the stent when the catheter is removed dislodging or moving the stent. Fortunately, this did not happen today.
The bottom line, Sophia's right pulmonary artery was stretched from a narrow 2mm to 11mm. This should substantially improve blood flow to the lungs.
There was a little blood in Sophia's breathing tube after the procedure. This was a concern but seems to have mostly resolved at this point. They have given her a large dose of diuretic (lasix) to prevent any fluid collecting in the lung.
The only other thing the doctor did was he got some images of the aorta for the surgeon doing Sophia's next surgery. He thought there was some possibility there could be some collateral pulmonary vessels that could be unifocalized during her next surgery. There did not appear to be any.
We will hopefully be moved from recovery to a regular room as soon as one becomes available.
Thanks for all your support. It means a lot.
-Michael