It's official! Al's heart is still good!!

Al had his heart cath done today and the results couldn't have been better! Good pressure and flow and no deformities! We are so grateful and relieved.

We had to be at the hospital by 6 am so I just took him straight from bed to the car. I thought about how many times we had been 'here' while we were in the waiting room - 'here' meaning waiting for a procedure or results from a procedure - and I couldn't help but remember how exhausting it used to be to take him to these long appointments because I had to entertain him the whole time. He has grown up so much and today just sat down with a ball toy and played. I was even able to leave him in the waiting room while I went to the next room to check him in.

After getting a height and weight on our big guy he got to try on this dazzling little ensemble. The fit was nice, but it's just not his color. He did like the sticky things on the socks to prevent slippage. He thought they were for his enjoyment to play with rather than a safety feature.

He got pretty anxious when the put the IV in. For a diabetic he sure hates needles! He never gives me any problem with his lancets to test him or even his syringes for his shots, but try to take blood from him or put an IV in and the world ends. So after that was in his hand they laid him in a bed, gave him something to calm the nerves and a remote for a video game, and life was good!

This was him in the recovery room. All bundled up and toasty warm. He had very nice nurses who took great care of him. They had him on oxygen, which he always needs when he is asleep. But no nausea! He was REALLY loopy though. He kept sitting up and looking around, then would fall back to the pillow and sleep a few minutes, then sit up again. I never could figure out what he was looking for or at. One thing that struck me was how big he looked. He is getting taller and thicker, but next to all these newborns to 1 year olds he was freakin' huge!!

This is all he has to show for it... a regular sized band-aid on his neck. Most times they put the cath through the groin area, but because he's older they chose to do it through his neck. Fine with me!! That got us home 6 hours earlier. We would have had to wait 6 hours after surgery to go home if they had gone through the groin.

So all in all a good day. I think we will both go take a nap now with our neighbor's dog Babe. (She came to make sure Al was OK.)