Successful Angiogram

Evie's angiogram started at 1PM on Friday and took about three hours, but was very successful and she came through the procedure wonderfully. The doctor who performed the angiogram told us that instead of having several small MAPCAs (described earlier in this post), she has one very large MAPCA that comes off her aorta and branches off to both of her lungs (she also has some much smaller MAPCAs, but her lungs receive 99% of their blood flow from the single large MAPCA).

The doctor was encouraged by this because it may make the unifocalization surgery much easier, as it is easier to reroute one large MAPCA than trying to tie together several smaller ones. Also, this large MAPCA, once it is cut from the aorta and rerouted, is more likely (in theory) to grow in size with Evie as she gets older.

Also, the doctor told me that he was able to view Evie's natural pulmonary artery (we previously thought she didn't have one at all because it didn't show up on ultrasounds), but it was so small as to be unusable. However, the doctor did say that Evie's heart was pumping very strongly, even though she only has a single ventricle doing all of the work.

One odd thing that will merit further investigation is that Evie's heart is apparently "way over" on her right side (most people's hearts are slightly to the left of their sternum), and this may indicate a slightly underdeveloped right lung. Some tests can be performed to verify this, such as an MRI scan or taking a sample of lung tissue, but right now the doctor told us not to worry about it as it doesn't have much impact on Evie's immediate heart issues.

Evie will be watched closely by the medical staff for the next 24-48 hours because her body will be cleansing itself of the "contrast fluid" in her blood, which is essentially a dye that is injected into the blood that allows the doctor's cardiac catheter camera to take better pictures. The kidneys are responsible for cleansing the blood of this dye, and it is a known risk that some people's kidneys do not react well to the dye, even causing the kidneys to shut down. There has been some concern about Evie's kidney function, so we'll be keeping our fingers crossed and saying extra prayers over the weekend.

The next stage is for Evie's cardiac surgen to evaluate the results of the angiogram and decide on surgical options. In the meantime, Evie will remain at Hope Children's Hospital for the next several days.

Sharon and I would again like to thank so many of our family and friends who have sent us notes and calls of enouragement. We're very blessed to be surrounded by such loving family and friends.