cardiac catheter (and the wiggles)

The bone scan is all clear :)

Ethan was pretty good over the weekend and was admitted monday morning for the cardiac catheter. He had the usual pre op tests (echo, ecg, chest xray, blood cross match and fbe) before going under at 2pm. A catheter usually takes around 2 hours but after 4 hours a nurse came out to say things were fine but progressing slowly. Half an hour later, Ethan's cardiac doctor came out and said it took a while because they had been trying to balloon a narrow part of his pulmonary artery. He told us Ethan's pulmonary artery has grown well but there are sections closer to the lungs which are narrow and will have to be looked at with either more catheter procedures or surgery. There is restricted blood flow at the conduit also. He says things are pretty positive and heading in the right direction, but they need to get the blood flow to the lungs right before they can close his VSD.

All the information gathered from the catheter will be taken to the cardiac surgeons on monday for discussion and they will let us know what they decide soon. It is likely that cardiac surgery will be required early in the new year.

Ethan recovered slowly from the lengthy procedure, as he was pumped with more fluid and had extra contrast in his system. The contrast slows kidney function which stopped him weeing. An in/out catheter was given to get things going again, so discharge was wednesday morning.



Never a big fan of the ECG



He loves a sleep during an echo



Rode the bike between appts at the RCH





Waiting around with Bob and Scoop



Spaced out after the midazalam pre-med

For the moment, our next appointment is on the 4th of January with Ethan's onc doctor.

We were lucky to be offered 4 sets of tickets to the Wiggles Christmas show at Rod Laver Arena on thursday. Thanks to Peter Mac for the superbox seats and the Australian Cancer Institute.