Successful but Sick

The best news is that the procedures were considered successful. However, they were also incredibly long and Clare ended up under anesthesia for six hours. Other than her open heart surgery, I think this is her longest time under anesthesia so far. So now she is pretty sick from post-anesthesia "complications." Fever, high heart rate, vomiting, unexplained rash over her face, trunk, and back, and fluid build-up. When I left the hospital at 8pm, she was starting to fall asleep. She is still receiving IV fluids since she is unable to keep any water down. She is being treated for her fever, and the nurse was waiting for the pharmacy to send up Benadryl (for the rash) and Lasix (for the fluid). The plan tonight is to treat her various symptoms, keep her as comfortable as possible, and see how she is feeling in the morning. Everyone expects Clare to be much-improved by then and, if she is, she can come home tomorrow.

I am not going to go into tons of details because it is probably boring to most people and I am exhausted, but the frenulectomy was successful in that it was done quickly and with no bleeding. We will not know if it makes a difference until Clare is back in school and working with her speech therapists. The embolization was also successful and the fistula is now closed. The interventional radiologist was able to save her radial artery and just use glue to close off the vein (the vein is not as important as the artery since there are only two arteries in the arm, the ulna artery and the radial artery, but there are numerous veins - here is your anatomy lesson for the day!). The aneurysm was not repaired - because of its placing, it would be very complicated to get to it and, right now, it is not making an impact on her hemodynamically (my dad was impressed I knew that big word - basically the aneurysm is not interfering with blood flow or causing added stress on Clare's heart, like the fistula was). Clare will return to IR in two weeks for another ultrasound scan to be sure the fistula is still closed and blood flow has returned to normal. Then we will just have to keep an eye on her aneurysm periodically to see if it ever develops into something more serious.

All in all, we are very happy with the outcome of today, but pray that Clare gets over the anesthesia effects quickly and can come home tomorrow. We all miss our sweet little girl!