Cardiac Cath Tomorrow!

It's been a crazy week!
On Monday we found out that his cardiac catheterization was scheduled for Friday, tomorrow! Whoa, that's too soon!

We were unsettled at the short notice and needed to get a second option ASAP! I was given the runaround by Radys records office when I called to get the echo results overnighted to CHLA. You know...policy, procedure, mail us a consent, we can send it next week, blah blah blah

So you know what I did? I went down there and sweet talked 'em. After a few minutes they said they'd work on it, it would probably take a few hours. I didn't have a few hours. But instead of rolling my eyes and stomping my feet, I graciously smiled and explained the importance of getting the second opinion. It's amazing how powerful kindness and sincerity can be. But honestly, Santi was with me and I think it was his smile that really won them over. Ten minutes after they told me it would take "hours" to get the Echo on a disk, I was walking to my car, disk in hand!!

I drove the disk to CHLA and hand delivered it to our former cardiologist, whose opinion I value and respect.
Just a few hours after getting her the disk, she emailed me some answers.

She explained that he has both types of collaterals and that they would need to be taken care of sooner than later. She said it could wait a few weeks, but after a lot of deliberation, Abe and I decided to keep Santi's appointment tomorrow. We're nervous, anxious and sad to send our baby in for another procedure but this cath will give us a better understanding of his hearts current function.

With all that excitement over the potential of a bi-ventricle repair, I also asked her for a second opinion on that too. Here what she said:
"As far as left ventricle growth- unfortunately, what is seen is not his left ventricle; he has a thick muscle that appears to be the wall between the ventricles but his LV is still extremely small."

Sadly, it looks like he is not a candidate for the bi-vent.

Santiago's cath is scheduled to start at 11:30am tomorrow. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers. I'll keep you updated right here, on the blog.