Kacy's Korner
Catheterization(Pre-III)
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It was after several pc appointments that her doctor decided to have Kacy get a catheterization with little chance of them doing the fontan at that time. Even though they prefer to do the third stage at a year of age, which she was, he felt her heart function just wasn't strong enough but wanted to do the cath to see if there was a reason for the weakness.

So in December of 1999, 2 weeks prior to Christmas, Kacy went in for her cath. Catheterizations for some children are a breeze, but with Kacy her arteries are hard to get the cath lines thru and we had it in our minds from the last one that it may have been the cause of her stroke, if not the surgery. The doctors had placed two coils in arteries where blood flow was not necessary in hopes to lessen the load of the heart. Everything else looked okay except for a slightly leaky valve.

Afterwards they brought Kacy back to her room to rest and stay as still as possible, which was easy because she was still heavily sedated. A few hours later when a doctor came in to check on her, he didn't like the looks of Kacy's right leg and could not get a good pulse in it, so they took her back to the step-down unit and put her on Heparin for a few hours. Later that evening she was taken off the Heparin and brought back to her room. Once again a doctor stopped in, was still not getting a good pulse, so back down to the step-down and back on Heparin she went. The next morning Kacy was in better spirits except for when a nurse or doctor came near her, and was eating and drinking a little. When the doctor who performed the cath came by to see Kacy and listen for a pulse, he informed us he believed there was a clot. He wanted to put her on a drug called "TPA"to dissolve the clot and told us she needed to be perfectly still while on this drug, so they sedated her. Not only did they try once to sedate her but three times the amount because she just wouldn't rest. Fina1ly she was out and they started the TPA plus a slow drip of Heparin. After less than 2 hours the doctor started getting a good pulse and anticipated taking her off the TPA within the hour. Even with all the sedation, Kacy started to stir and fuss and when we went over to the crib and moved the blanket, she was laying in a pool of blood. They applied pressure to the cath site, stopped the bleeding, of course stopped the TPA and cleaned Kacy up. The doctor told us though it looked like alot of blood, he didn't believe she'd need a transfusion but they would closely monitor her stats. It was at this point we realized what a true fighter and real hero our little girl was. To wake herself up from total sedation to let us know something was wrong was truely a miracle. Kacy was able to go home two days later.