Update on Payton's Heart Cath

Payton’s heart cath procedure is complete and she is in recovery. They were able to access a vein in her neck as the entry point so she should only need to be monitored for 4-5 hours, if all goes well they should be on their way home between 2-4pm. Once they got inside and started to look around they decided that she WILL need to have her 3rd open heart surgery at the beginning of November. So, this was more of a pre-op procedure rather than an intensive one like the last heart cath. That is the short update. For a more technical update read on.

Typically the point of the heart cath is to widen any openings that have narrowed and to close any collateral arteries that the body has created. (Collateral arteries are arteries that the heart creates to improve blood flow when the pressure inside the heart increases.) During Payton’s previous heart cath they widened an artery but within the following months it narrowed again. Because of this narrowing the heart created large collateral arteries to deal with the added pressure. Fortunately, these arteries went where they were supposed to go (the main artery takes blood to in inferior vena cava and so do the new collateral arteries). According to Dr. Adhoot, Payton’s heart has been working like this for over a year.

The narrowing occurred because of scar tissue build up from the previous surgery site. Because they now know how her body deals with scar tissue they will be able to fix the connection during her next surgery so this does not happen again. They did NOT balloon/widen the artery or close any of the larger collateral arteries because they will be taken care of during her surgery.

Her primary cardiologist, Dr. Burke, is out of town until Nov. 2nd, so they will wait for him to return before having the surgery. The surgery will be scheduled and Jenn and Donald will meet with the surgeon, Dr. Starnes, before he gets back.

Hopefully all of the medical jargon makes sense. Jennifer said she will post tonight after Payton is asleep (with pictures). I may post before then, but we'll have to see. Thanks for checking in on our sweet Payton. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers.

Aunt Melissa