The questions about surgery are as follows:
Where: Texas Children's
Who: Dr. Fraser
When: will be decided soon
What: most likely a Glenn procedure and a correction of the pulmonary veins
How: that's up to Heavenly Father and the surgeon!
All kidding aside, during rounds this morning they will be setting up a time to come in a do Ethan's blood work for surgery as well as scheduling his cath to determine his anatomy anomalies and his pressures within his heart. Surgery date to come soon!
Basically, his pulmonary veins form a sort of pouch then one common vein stems off and goes around his pulmonary artery that leads to his right lung, then it goes back down and into his heart. They are worried about restrictions within these vessels and it would be better if they just hooked up to the heart like normal, so that's what they are going to try to do. His anatomy is too complex to be able to do a full repair unless they see something different with the cath...so we will be looking at a Glenn. Basically, they take his superior vena cava and detach it from the heart and connect it to the pulmonary vein so that he gets straight blue blood to his lungs instead of a blue/red mix. I don't know if they have decided to disconnect his pulmonary vein from his heart or leave it as it has got a lot of blockages and stuff that could get nasty. I have a picture that Dr. Altman drew to explain his anatomy to me and as soon as I can get it scanned in I will.
More updates soon...we're coming down to it now...
2 comments:
I can't imagine having to understand this stuff, Amanda. I have medical training and my head spins a bit when you are explaining it. You sound like you are in very capable and caring hands. Keep us updated!
It's a lot easier to understand when you have 4 cardiologist residents, 2 fellows, and 3 students standing over the top of you drawing a picture...I'm a teacher for goodness sakes...I haven't had biology since Spring of '07 at Ricks...this is the mother of all refresher courses...
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