Cath Update

I was able to go back and see Teagan around 11:30 this morning in the recovery room. Dr. Jones talked to us and said everything went well and that there was a definite narrowing right where the superior vena cava (svc) was connected to the pulmonary. There was no evidence of any clotting, just some scar tissue that had already started to form and close off the opening. He explained it sort of like squeezing a drain shut- the blood was flowing up to her head and then when it went to 'drain' down into her pulmonary, the opening was too small to accomodate the flow. Here are a few pictures from her cath:


The picture above is what they saw when they went in.
Here above is an explanation of what you're looking at. The blue arrows are pointing to the area where she had the blockage. The opening should be much bigger here to allow for better blood flow. You can also see the small tube of the catheter at the top left, and her feeding tube that curves down through the whole pic. I also pointed out a small narrowing she has on the right side of her pulmonary where her Sano shunt was taken down during her Glenn.

Here's a pic of the mesh shunt that was placed at the site of her narrowing. You can see that they were able to double the size of her svc opening. Also if you look to the right where she had some other narrowing from the shunt takedown, it has popped back open due to the increased flow! Its so amazing what they are able to do with the catheters instead of having to open her back up again. Here's a pic of our sleeping beauty this afternoon. Teagan's swelling is slowly starting to go down but she is still really puffy in her face and completely exhausted. They're giving her iv fluids for now until she feels like eating.