Little M’s Heart

He was able to place a good sized stent in her left pulmonary artery, almost doubling the diameter of that! This is awesome for her, and when she outgrows this one (stents don’t grow with you), it will be fairly easy to make this larger via another cath.

Our girl came out, and slept the day away. We tried to wake her several times, but she wasn’t having it.
(Thanks Kelly, for hanging out with our other kids!)

Since she has to lay still post cath with her leg completely flat for six hours, it is just as well, and we let her sleep for a long time.

She finally woke up, and we got a little smile while she ate a popsicle before she went back to sleep.

Much later, when she was alert and eating more, the six hours had more than passed (we were going on nine hours), we decided to get her up to move around and use the restroom before bed.
She was doing so well, and we walked a loop around the hall before coming back to the bathroom. As soon as we walked in, little M said she felt sick to her stomach, and she got sick. Then she lifted her hospital gown…and there was blood pouring down her leg.

The pressure dressing on her cath site had been removed after six hours, which is standard. Normally, after this is removed, if all is well, you can typically go home, but we were staying the night for observation because of the stent placement.

I grabbed some toilet paper, and pressed it to the site, which was freely pumping blood, and ran to the door to call our nurse. As soon as the nurse came in she set the alarm, and we quickly had plenty of people surrounding our girl. They took her right back, and even though it seemed like forever, the bleeding was under control after about ten minutes, and a new pressure bandage was applied.
Little M lost a significant amount of blood, and was non-responsive by the time she was being wheeled back. She had a very low blood pressure throughout the night, and was given meds for that, as well as fluids, and some iron.

The next morning she was still pale and tired, but she was happy to sit and play in bed…

She got an echo to check her stent, and all looked well.

We took her home Saturday!

Poor little M is still very weak, and tires SO easily, which is frustrating for her, since she wants to go back to school.

For now, we hold her close, we talk through fears, we love with everything we’ve got. And we are thankful…so thankful our girl is here with us to hold and love.