We just found out yesterday evening that Claire's open heart surgery will be postponed for another 3 weeks in efforts to let her brain hemorrhaging heal. As hard as it is to wait longer we know this is the best thing for her! Knowing that surgery will be weeks away our cardiologist suggested that we do a temporary procedure this morning at 10:00 involving a balloon angioplasty stent. The medicine that she is on to keep her ductus and heart passageway open called prostaglandins is rumoring to have an upcoming shortage and it makes the tissue around the area that Dr Hammel will be operating on thinner and softer which makes it more difficult to stitch during surgery.
Here is a brief description of how I understand what the procedure is that the doctors will be doing:
"Balloon angioplasty of femeral vein stenosis, which is combined with stenting and is a temporary measure for infants and children awaiting further surgeries. On a full sized adult heart this procedure would be a permanent fix, but she would outgrow this stent in a matter of months because she is so young and her heart is so small. The procedure involves inserting a catheter into a large blood vessel, and passing it into the narrowed area under X-ray control. A balloon is then inflated to relieve the narrowing. A stent is then inserted following dilatation to maintain patency." The entire procedure (from when she goes down for it until she returns to ICU) can take up to three hours or more. So keep her in your prayers that she remains strong and pray for the doctors and nurses to enable them to use their medical knowledge to the best of their ability.
1 comment:
Hope that everything went okay with todays surgery. It is too bad you are set back another 3 weeks until her operation. We were hopeing that you could atleast be home for Christmas! Always thinking and praying,
Love, JON and ASHLEY
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