Coping with another cardiac catheter

Jessica has coped well with another cardiac catheter investigation and this has showed that the pressures in the blood vessels across her lungs should hopefully be low enough for her to tolerate the Glenn procedure when this is re-attempted. There is some narrowing where her superior vena cava was reconnected to her heart after the last operation, but this is to be expected given that it had to be rejoined. Her oxygen saturation levels are still good and so there is no urgency to carry out the next stage at present but we anticipate that this will happen at some point in the next few months.

We have recently found out that our surgeon, Mr Haw, will be leaving Southampton to lead a cardiac team in the USA and that he is likely to be leaving sometime around June. We will be sad to see him leave and although there is a team of excellent surgeons in Southampton, we hope that Jessica’s next operation will take place before he goes.

Jessica has been back to her normal happy smiley self this evening so is recovering well from the procedure. She is getting better with her feeding and has managed to latch directly to the breast for a moment which is definite progress. She is due to be weighed tomorrow and hopefully won’t have lost too much weight whilst she has been re-adjusting to having to make an effort to get milk rather than having it given via nasogastric tube. Hopefully if all is well, we will be able to go back home tomorrow as well.