Update 30

WE'RE AT IT AGAIN

Hey everybody. We are back in Milwaukee at Children's Hospital for the next step. Before I get into all of that, perhaps now is a good time for a bit of a review. In short, Thaddeus was born with the right side of his heart not working correctly. So, while the left side of the heart was still going strong, the right amount of blood was not going to the right parts of the body. So shortly after birth he had a surgery. This surgery was to take both the artery and the vein that exit the heart (one normally goes to the lungs and one goes to the body) and tied them together to send all the blood to the body. Obviously there still needed to be blood going to the lungs. They put in a shunt (think a drinking straw) from the heart to the lungs. This is a temporary fix as he will soon outgrow the shunt. Why do it then? They used to go right to the main surgery, but over time they found out that they got poor long term results when they made things too easy on the heart and lungs right away. They need to make the baby work a bit to help things grow and develop properly. The problem this creates is that is allows the oxygenated (red) blood to mix with the de-oxygenated (blue) blood. His oxygen saturation level (what percent of the blood that could carry oxygen is carrying blood) has been in the upper seventies to low eighties. A normal person will be 99% give or take 1%. As he gets bigger and more active his body needs more oxygen and 80% isn't going to cut it anymore. So right now Thaddeus is in surgery for a catherization. What this means is that they are sending a small camera though his leg vein into his heart and surrounding areas to check things out. They are checking on the results of the first surgery and also getting information for the surgery tomorrow. This allows the surgeon to plan better what he will need to do. The general plan is that he will need to take out the shunt that he put in last time, and close the opening he made. However, since blood obviously still needs to get to the lungs, they are going to disconnect the vein that runs into the top of the right side of his heart. They are going to seal up that hole and then re-connect that vein to another spot that leads to the lungs. Normally the blood would flow into his heart and be pumped towards the lungs, but since his right side isn't working there is no point in going to the heart. This will help to keep the blue blood and the red blood separate and should raise his blood oxygen level. In another few years we will be back at it again as they do the same thing on the bottom of the heart. This will eventually raise his blood oxygen levels to around 95%. The down side of this of course is that the left side of his heart is doing the work of both sides. This will mean that it will probably wear out faster so with today's technology he will need a heart transplant somewhere around the age of 25. However, who knows what technology will be discovered by then? We aren't spending much time thinking about that.

The medical personnel here are very pleased with his weight and size. He is much larger (15 lbs) than the average cardiac baby. In fact, at Dede's last visit, they told her he is the healthiest looking cardiac baby they have ever seen. When we brought him in today at 6:30  they did note that his color looks a little too blue, (meaning his body isn't getting quite enough oxygen) so it is time for the surgery.

We just had an update. So far everything is going well. The preliminary results of the echo are good, and they have the cath in place. We won't know much for a few more hours. So far the worst part has been not being able to feed the poor guy.

That's it for now.

P.S. For my students and their families: I took book one of the series you got me along and have started reading it. Thanks!

Update 30 B:

Everything looks good and we are on schedule for surgery tomorrow afternoon. However, as you may remember from last time, schedules tend to change A LOT around here. He was sedated and as he came out of it, he was not allowed to eat or move much. The thing is, those happen to be two of his favorite things to do! We just got to feed him and he is feeling better, at least until they have to stop feeding him again tomorrow in preparation for surgery. Otherwise things are going as expected.