Yesterday DH went in and had his cardiac cath done. There wasn't much in the line of good news. They tried to keep him awake for it and just give him something to relax, they pumped him full of an anti-anxiety med (7 times the normal dose they said) and it didn't faze him. So all the while they're trying to stab him in the neck to insert a catheter, and he's awake and feeling everything, so he fought them some. Finally they just gave him a general anesthesia and put him to sleep, but he's home and still disoriented from so much drugs over 24 hours later.
They had a really hard time finding insertion points, because DH has had so many surgeries and caths done in his life, that his femoral veins are non-accessible. Because of all of this, and because of DH's allergy to latex, the doctor is about 75% sure that they will not be able to give him a melody valve, which could have been inserted in a cath lab had they not had so much difficulty. So the doctor is looking into another open heart surgery in the very near future.
I'm really worried about him having to have another open heart surgery, because I'm pretty certain i'm not going to be able to get time off for that from work. I had a devil of a time getting time off to come here for just a week for the cath, and an open heart surgery would require a great deal more recovery time before I could bring him home. I may have to leave him out here in St. Louis with his grandparents, I may not even be able to BE here when he's in the hospital having it. Everything is so uncertain... but I wanted to update y'all on how the cath went.