Thursday, May 19, 2011

Follow Up Cardiologist Appt

Today was Gavin's follow up with his cardiologist. We discussed his surgery date and he had labs done.  His surgery date has been moved from Monday, June 13th, to Friday, June 10th. Apparently, the brainstorming didn't stop with the decision for his surgery that was made a couple of weeks ago.



The surgical team has been adamant with putting off surgery as long as possible. They don't like idea of adding an extra surgery to Gavin's list of several future surgeries, however they agree the conduit can not be left as it is now, with the bare stint in place, hanging over into the pulmonary artery and in front of the pseudo aneurysm which could cause the bare stint to erode over time. They have come up with a possible resolution.

Currently Gavin has a bare stint in his conduit.  The heart catheter team will be attempting to place 2 covered stints within the stint that is already in place. They could not place the covered stint the first time because it would have hung over to much into the pulmonary artery and would have blocked blood flow (which was the problem in the conduit).  When placing the stints into place, the doctors make sure of the exact location and proceed to inflate the stint to appropriate size. Physics tells us that when an object is inflated, it shrinks in length so they are "hopefully" to achieve the perfect position once it is inflated. This requires them the originally place the stint hanging over into the pulmonary artery prior to inflating, then once inflated it will pull down from the pulmonary artery. The downsize, is that it may seem like the stint is in the perfect position, then once inflated it no longer is in that precise position because of "physics".  We have been reassured that the worse thing that could happen is that the placement is not satisfactory, then Gavin is taken to surgery, that is in addition to the preexisting risks of a heart catheter, which I'm sure many of us know them to be things like a possible stroke or an infection.

Originally, the way this procedure was presented to us, made us feel like it was our decision to make, whether we go with this procedure which sounded pretty experimental or straight into surgery.  We learned today that technically it was the doctors final decision, which may sound harsh and not correct to some but "UTTERLY" a huge relief to Justin and I! I was really struggled these last few days  with making the decision whether or not to my son through surgery again so soon. How do you voluntarily put your baby into heart surgery. The "what if's" rambled on through by brain for days until Dr. Cotts put them to rest today. I can't not explain the relief I felt. 

The bonus to Gavin having this procedure working is it would move his surgery back to possible 2-3 years of age.  He will be going in for a sedated echo on June 9th at 10:30am. June 10th he will go back in at 7:30am for his stint procedure and if it is not a success, his surgery is at 11:30am the same day.  I think his cardiologist will be bringing him back in before hand to have an echo or two before the procedure because of the valve on the conduit that no longer works properly. He has always had a leaky valve however, it has since worsen and the doctor doesn't feel comfortable leaving him unchecked until June 9th.
ANOTHER relief to us ;)

Other than all of that technical mess, Gavin is feeling really well, smiling, playing, laughing, making us laugh and just being his typical always on the go and humorous self.

2 comments:

Mel said...

I am so glad there is a good plan in place and the docs will try the less invasive route before full blown surgery. I hope the cath procedure is very, very successful and OHS can wait a year or two. You all remain in my thoughts.

Anonymous said...

I know we have not kept in touch, but there is not a day that goes by that Gavin is not in my prayers. He is a strong little boy with 2 amazing parents. I hope all future procedures go as planned and God continues to watch over your little man. Kelly