Thursday, October 15, 2009

SVC stenting

Hello fellow bloggers! Just wanted to come here and do an update....since its been FOREVER since I have. Yale is doing well... we have some uneplained vomiting but since I've limited the fluid volumes at a time its definitely decreased to once a day.... Yale has an appointment in the cath lab for this upcoming Wednesday Oct 21. He's having a biopsy as well as an SVC stenting... generally a pretty straight forward procedure as long as Yale cooperates... hopefully the most difficult part is getting IV access.... as usual. I'll quickly explain SVC stenting for those who are not cardiologist, cardiac nurses, and heart moms... :) The Superior Vena Cava (SVC) is the major route of blood return from the upper body and head to the heart. When Yale had his Glenn procedure they moved this vein from draining into the right side of the heart to drain directly into his pulomonary veins.... thus bypassing the need for two ventricles...(since he only had one!) Anyhoo, then when it came time to put a new healthy heart into his chest they had to bring it back to drain into the right side of his heart (which then pumps it to the lungs) and as well all know about scar tissue it rarely if ever grows.... so where his SVC was connected to his heart is still quite narrow... So they are going to go in and put a little piece of metal mesh tubing into that area and baloon it out so it holds the opening larger. The metal will be there for the rest of his time with this heart... ;) so no more MRI's... So there you go... a minor cardiac lesson for you all...

Anyhoo Yale is doing great otherwise.... we had a visit for two weeks at Grandma's house in New Liskeard.... although we didn't get as much visiting in as I had hoped (I'm lazy and quite the shy person) we did get to see both sides of the family :) Yale perfected his walking while up north with quite a few bumps and bruises....but has it down pat now! His talking is still merely jargon so we have an apointment with TykeTalk booked for this november (3 yr anniversary of the loss of the twins to be exact) and hopefully they'll give me some more ideas on how to get more words out of the guy.... and yesterday I gave him his very first haircut..(technically not his first since he has had a few shaves for scalp IVs..) I did it myself and think it was a success...and now he REALLY looks like dad... if it was possible to do anymore than normal..
Anyhoo I'll attach a couple pics so you can see him growing :)



With Grandma and Grandpa Seaton
New hair cut
With Uncle Jeff's giant pumpkin at Aunt Erica's house!