Back on the ward

Magnus came out of the cath lab around 3:30, and I got here just after he did. He was asleep, but woke up shortly afterward. He was cranky (understandably), hoarse, and very thirsty.

I ran into the main nurse from the cath lab as I was arriving and she (along with everyone else I've spoken to from the cath lab) raved about how well he did during the procedure, meaning that he tolerated the anesthesia well and all the procedures went smoothly.

The cath doctor just came by to talk to me, too. He reiterated Magnus's issues, but said that he thought he could probably take care of all the rest of his collaterals during his next cath, and that he wants to schedule that for after the holidays. He also said that we would know "within a fairly short time frame, maybe 12 months" whether this would fix his problem. That seemed funny to me, because Magnus is not yet 12 months old, so that is literally a lifetime in his case, but I guess it's not really so long in the scheme of things.

He said the worst case scenario, if Magnus's pressures didn't come in line, was that his Glenn shunt would be taken down, and he would go back to post-Norwood. He said that people can live a pretty long time like that, maybe 20 years, before heart failure and transplant. He then pointed out that even in the best case scenario, all these surgeries are considered a bridge to heart transplantation, although that may be "60 or 70 years out" (that is the most optimistic scenario I've ever heard from a cardiologist, but hey, who knows?)

Anyway, in the meantime, it looks like we are here until Sunday (at least) just because with everything they did to him they expect him to feel crappy and be feverish for at least a couple of days. The cath doc also said that they weren't sure what would happen with his sats right now, because they coiled 2 populations of veins, one that was increasing his blood oxygenation, and another that was decreasing it, so it'll be unclear which one wins. Right now they have him on an oxygen cannula, but we'll see how long that lasts once he really wakes up.