Cardiac Catherization - April 9th

     On April 9, 2025, I arrived at Maine Medical Center in Portland for my routine cardiac catheterization. My last procedure was in 2017, and my Fontan procedure had been stable, so nothing needed to be done or corrected.

    As we prepared for the procedure, everything went as planned. It did not take long, but the results were not what we had hoped for: my Fontan was failing. The pressure in the Fontan was high, and when that happened, collateral veins formed to direct oxygen into a dead-end pathway. This results in less oxygen being delivered to the body, significantly affecting my quality of life.

    I was informed that I had a large network of collateral veins in my left lung, resembling a bird's nest. Normally, we would go in to stent and coil off these collateral veins,
But this time it was deemed too risky, especially given the high pressures in my Fontan.

    While the news wasn’t a complete shock, I had some inkling that things might not turn out as we hoped. Despite this, I struggled to process my feelings about it. The word that kept echoing in my mind was “transplant.”

    Transplant wasn’t a new concept for me; I had been dealing with that possibility since I was 12. However, the mere thought of it made me feel as if the world had stopped spinning. There were some signs I had noticed over the year, but nothing as unimaginable as this. Being almost 31, I am surprised to have been stable this long. 

    Life is truly weird.