This was the day the whole plan had been waiting on. Isaac had a cardiac catheterization, where they go in through a vein and take real measurements and pictures from inside his heart. It’s the information the surgeons need before anyone decides what comes next.
He came through it with no complications.
I couldn’t be there in person sadly. I caught the same cold Isaac had, and the last thing I’d want to do is infect another sick kid in the cardiac unit so Mom took over at the hospital. We did a conference call with the cath docs once it was over.
The results came back with some good and some that needs fixing. The main measure of his heart doing its job came back normal (a good solid squeeze), and so did the pressures in his lungs, which matters a lot for keeping his options open down the road. The things that need fixing are mechanical: a narrowed spot in the path out of his heart, a couple of small leaks in a patch from his first surgery, and the leaky tricuspid valve we already knew about.
Now his case goes in front of the combined heart and surgery board, where the cardiologists and surgeons sit down together with all of it and decide the path forward. A few directions are on the table. Surgery to repair the valve and the mechanical issues, moving him from the IV medicine onto pills he could take at home, and they’ve mentioned a heart transplant as one possibility as well.