Cardiac Catheterization

On Thursday the ninth Elizabeth was taken down to a large room with an absolutely enormous machine in the middle. Monitors on one wall and supplies on the others. This was the Cath Lab.



Cardiac Catheterization is a procedure where they enter an artery with a small tube, run that tube up into the heart and do something. In the case of our Elizabeth, it was to run a small balloon through the tube push the deflated balloon through her aortic valve into the left ventricle, inflate the balloon to 5mm and pull the balloon back through the aortic valve. This will cause the closed cusps of the valve to tear and hopefully allow blood to flow up the aorta without "leaking" or regurgitating back through to the ventricle.

The procedure went very well. The doctor said that he was going to try to get it to go through the umbilical first, but he was unsuccessful so they put it in the femoral artery in her leg. The doctor said that the left ventricle was not pumping as well as he'd like and is still very enlarged. He said that it usually takes time to see changes like this. So they'll do another Echo Cardiogram on Monday.