I just want to update everyone about Katelyn's surgery. Thursday was the longest day ever. I got up at 4:30A.M. so I could feed Katelyn as much as possible before she had to stop eating and drinking at 5am. I then kept her up until we left at 7am so she would sleep during the 2 hour drive. We got there at 9am and checked in and then had to do X-rays, EKG, and an Echocardiogram. Then, we waited and waited. It was 1pm when they finally took her the procedure room. My poor baby must have been starving by then, but she never fussed much. The tried to put an IV in her right hand, but the blood vessel blew. Then, they sedated her because she was screaming after the IV attempt. At that point, we were asked to leave the room. They called us about 30 minutes later to tell us they tried anothe IV in her left and right hand, but finally had to put the IV in her foot. Then, they started the procedure. I thought they were only going to put catheters in one leg, but they ended up doing both. About and hour late they called to tell us the procedure was a success and about a half an hour after that, they finally brought her back to us. She was awake so I gave her a bottle of apple juice and she drank it all and cried when it was gone so they I gave her a bottle of milk, too, and she finished that as well. After getting her tummy full, she went back to sleep while they did another round of Xrays, EKG, and Echocardiogram. We spent a long while in the recovery room waiting for a hospital room to become available and be cleaned. Finally, a little after 5pm we were given a room. She slept on and off from the that point on. She developed a fever around 6-7pm and it got up to 102, but came down after she was given motrin. The circulation in her left leg has not quite returned to normal, but the doctor didn't seem too concerned. However, I was so I kept asking about it and they told me to give he r 1/2 baby aspirin every day to help thin her blood so it flow better and she won't develop a clot or anything like that. She had an appointment at her regular pediatrician Monday so I will get her to check on her leg, too. We go back to the cardiologist in a month for a check up and then after that we will go at 6 months and then after that we will go once per year for a few years.
We got home Friday around 2pm and I can tell she is so happy to be back her. I hope that in a few days she will be completely healed and back to normal. I am so glad it is over and that hopefully we will never have to do this again. Thanks for all the prayers!
As you can tell from the picture below, Katelyn is feeling fine now. You would never know from her what a difficult time we had this week.
