So not bad news, but the MRI wasn't able to be utilized. Caelen has stainless steel coils in his chest from past caths done at Childrens in DC, and metal and MRI machines don't mix. Here at CHoP they use platinum coils so that they don't interfere with the machine. What this means to us is that the doctors cannot really get images of any collateral arteries that may be in his chest cavity, stealing oxygenated blood from his lungs. This would have been extremely beneficial because the MRI would have also told us if there was any blood flow in the collaterals or not, and if they needed to be coiled off. Coiling isn't bad, but you don't want to keep doing it if you don't have to.
Caelen is now in the cath lab where they can still see the collaterals, if there are any, but the docs will kind of be flying blind as to whether or not they are posing a problem. The risk being that the wrong artery could be coiled or plugged, and the wrong artery being a nervous system artery (brain). Thankfully the risk of that is low, but now you see why MRI is so important. I wish we had known years ago that there was even an option to not do metal coils. But there is nothing we can do now, MRI is no longer an option for Caelen.
We'll post again once we know more.
Ugh! What a disappointment! Praying they can answer some of those questions during the cath!
ReplyDeleteKatye, that must be so frusturating for you. Having experienced such situations on a much more minor scale, I imagine the metal-coil snafu probably made you want to bop someone on the head! You have my prayers that all will go smoothly for the rest of the procedures. May God bless you & little Caelen, Martin & the rest of the family. Love, Mary
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