Zayne enjoyed Halloween and her 12th Birthday, but did not enjoy a heart catherization.
Zayne was a pirate for Halloween (yes, the horse is wearing the same hat that she wore for Halloween). She turned 12 on October 29th and had a birthday party at a trampoline park.
The heart cath was rough on Zayne, but she had a good outcome. There was a lot more pain after this cath than she had ever had before. This one was a little different because they had a team from the adult hospital as well as the Children’s Hospital team (and some observers to check out the new equipment), plus she had a high dose of blood thinner and was under for double the usual time. The hospital acquired equipment to enable high resolution measurements and images for Zayne. I was glad that she didn’t need to go to the adult hospital.
She had a high dose of blood thinner which caused bleeding in her throat from the breathing tube. Then someone ‘helped’ by siphoning out blood in her mouth which caused a large, bleeding bruise under her tongue. Zayne woke up with pain in her throat, pain under her tongue, a bruised lip, pain in arm and body achiness from a vaccine, pain in hand from 4 sticks to get a single IV going, pain from the cath site (where wires were inserted into vein and artery), and the discomfort of needing to lay flat for 4 hours. We did NOT need to spend the night in the hospital, but Zayne spent 2 days recovering at home. She is feeling much better, today.
The artery image shows a normal section vs the section that is narrowing. The perfect orange circle is the cath wire. The flow through the narrowed portion isn’t as bad as they thought, so Zayne does not need a stent at this time. Also, Zayne has had less heart pain the past few months, and that is probably due to the pressures in her heart going down to more normal levels. There is some minor cellular rejection; kids often go between 0 and 1R after rejection (which Zayne had in April 2020). So far, the plan is to repeat this type of heart cath in 6 months. The transplant team will meet next week to discuss her case, so plans may change.