We came up to St Louis Children's Hospital yesterday and had appointments in the heart station for an echo, ekg, and chest x-ray. Damon did great for all of them, but he was a little freaked out in the x-ray. We got a room at the Ronald McDonald House, which is a blessing because it's really close and really cheap. This morning we checked into the hospital at 6:45am and they took him back to the cath lab at about 7:40am. At 9am we got an update that they had access in both his superior venacava (shoulder vein) and his femoral artery (groin) and that they were taking pictures. They just gave another update that they had found some colateral vessels in his lungs and they were closing those off. Colateral vessels are blood vessels the body grows to try to make up for insufficient oxygen supply to the body. They are not good because they take blood away from the real vessels making it harder for the body to get oxygen. They block them off somehow so that no more blood can get to them. The dr told us this morning that they are going to look closely at his pulminary artery and his aorta to see if there is any narrowing there. That's all we know for now. I'll be making updates on Facebook so if you are on there, you can get shorter more frequent updates. Otherwise I'll try to post on here again tonight. Please be in prayer for everything to go as planned and that he will have an easy time after the cath is over. He'll have to lie flat for at least 6 hours after it's over. Thanks for all the prayers, support and love.

Sarah

I got the letter from St Louis Children's Hospital about Damon's heart cath. He has to be up there on the 25th for his pre-cath tests. He'll have an echo, an ekg, a chest x-ray and then he'll have an appt with the anesthesiologist. Those all start at 11am so we'll be spending the better part of that afternoon in the hospital. The next day he'll go in early for his cath and also a perfusion scan so that will be a long day as well. Please keep him in your prayers that he will not be too nervous about any of it. I haven't really told him a whole lot yet because I don't want him to worry. Pray for me as well, it's not easy to think about all this starting again. Talk to you all soon.

Sarah