Malachi's Smile!

He's so cute!


Malachi has been smiling so much more lately and it is the cutest thing ever. It's so much fun watching him grow up! Here are a couple of his more recent smile pictures...

Malachi's Catherization...

Malachi's Cath was on Monday, June 2nd at 10:30 am. Dr. Cheatham performed the procedure. After waiting 6 hours, with a few nerve-racking updates, to hear how the Cath went we were relieved. Dr. Cheatham said that Malachi's Femoral Arteries (main arteries in his legs) were occluded, which means they were closed up. The body makes new arteries to replace those that have "died." They are smaller and more curvy, but still allow adequate blood flow to his legs. They also make it harder for the Cath procedure. This made it longer and harder to access his heart through those arteries. They did get in, and found that his Pulmonary Branch was indeed very narrowed. It was measuring .8 mm! Dr. Cheatham inserted a stent, which is a very small metal wiring that collapses and opens. They use a balloon to widen the stent. This allows his Pulmonary Branch to be much larger and blood can flow freely between his lungs. This is a temporary fix until his last surgery at three years of age, where they will patch tissue to the artery to make it a more permanent fix. He also went into heart block, which is when the electrical firing system in the heart is disrupted and causes the heart to beat out of sync. (He has done this several times before.) His heart recovered on his own and did not need any medicine to help it. Dr. Cheatham later told us that he discovered that Malachi has his valves in his heart switched and thus has a greater chance for heart block.

Malachi was transferred up to the floor within an hour after the procedure was finished, and was eating a bottle that evening. He had some major swelling in his head due to all the fluid they gave him in the Cath Lab. He was given IV Lasix and within the next day he had urinated off most of the fluid.

We came home on Tuesday, June 3rd. Malachi is doing great! His coloring looks really good. (His feet don't get quite as purple, and he doesn't turn purple when he gets mad!) He is eating and sleeping and glad to be home.

I have included some pictures of the procedure and hope you can get an idea of what all Dr. Cheatham did. We are so thankful to our great God for protecting our son once again!

Before the stent; narrowing of the Pulmonary Artery:

After the stent; Pulmonary Artery much larger:

The balloon used to open up the stent. We got to keep it!: