Cath is Underway

It was just a little harder to shut my mind off as I was falling asleep last night. The alarm was set for 4:30 this morning, but surprisingly I feel pretty good right now. About 20 minutes ago we left Sofia and her cath has started.

Dr. Mehta was the cardiologist that saw her first and we liked her. Had not met her before this. Then she was seen by anesthesiology, Dr. Rivera. It was alot of waiipting and Sofia said a couple of times that she wanted to go home. But she was calm and very well behaved. The child life specialist named Ashley came to see her, which was good timing because I wanted to meet with someone from child life just to see if they had any suggestions on how to talk with Sofia about surgery. Sounds like we are doing the right things. Sofia got a dose of liquid versed, which had her very calm within 10 minutes. She blew bubbles with us and Ashley. She got to pick a flavor of chapstick to coat the inside of the mask they were using. She played with the mask.

I wasn't expecting that they planned on intubating her because she wasn't for her cath at 6 mos. Dr. Rivera said it has something to do with the CO2 and not getting good reads for some numbers without intubation. Anyway, I hope she handles it all well.

Dr. Golden came In and saw us. He is the cardiologist performing that cath. His plan is to go in throught the neck so he can see the pulmonary arteries. He said he will try to get an artery in her groin. From her last cath, her right side of groin was occluded, but the previous doctor had not attempted the left side and chose to go through the liver instead. He said he can ultrasound it and see if it looks like a go. If not, there is a chance he might get what he needs just from going through the neck. If not, he'll go through liver.

We were able to go to the cath lab, which is new since we've had her last one. Apparently with new equipment. Sofia was very calm from the versed. It took maybe a minute or two for her to be out after putting the watermelon mask on. Love, love this girl. Not sure how long it will take, but we will get update after 2 hrs.