Graysen's Heart Cath

Lee and I arrived at MUSC at 6 AM this morning. Prior to the procedure, the nurses took Graysen's vitals, gave him sleeping medication, and performed an EKG. He was rolled back to the Cath Lab at 8 AM this morning. In the Cath Lab, they will perform a sedated echo, and peform the heart cath. During the heart cath, they will insert catheraters through an artery in his groin. The tube will go through his body to his heart. They will map his arteries, measure pressures throughout his heart, arteries, and shunt, and inject a contrast dye to obtain video pictures of his heart. They are looking for areas of narrowing and will use the pressure readings to determine how well his heart is functioning. If they find a narrow area that is hurting his heart function, they will use a balloon to force the area open.

The purpose of today's cath is to ensure that Graysen is a good canidate for surgery, and to give the surgeon a blueprint of Graysen's heart and arteries. (If the pressure readings are too high, he will not be considered for surgery, and they will perform treatments until his pressures are acceptable for surgery.)

They anticipate that he will be in the Cath Lab for approximately 4 hours. They gave Lee and I a pager, and page us periodically with updates. The last page told us the the echo was complete, they are preparing to cath, and that Graysen is doing fine. After he is returned to the post procedure area, we will be allowed to visit him. He must remain still for an additional two hours, so they will keep him sedated during that time. After two hours, they can begin the process to slowly start waking him up, and getting him to a state where we can take him home. The plan is to take him to the hotel this evening as long as he is doing OK, and as long as they didn't have to use the balloon. (He automatically would be required to stay overnight if they had to use the balloon.) They told us to stay nearby MUSC tonight, and he should be OK to return to Spartanburg tomorrow.

The doctors will talk to us after the procedure to tell us their findings. If everything looks good, a surgery request will be sent to the surgeon. The surgeon will look over the request, and plan the surgery. His office will contact us in the next 1-2 weeks, at which time we should be given a surgery date.