Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Tuesday Current mood: exhausted
The heart cath is done. Macy Jane is back in her regular room recovering from the anesthesia. She was on a little bit of oxygen initially, but has since come off of it. She did well, her legs have pulses in them and they are pink--unlike last time when they were blue after her heart cath.
This is what they found. God has been blessing little MJ for the past few months. Her MAPCA's (the arteries supplying her blood instead of the true pulmonary arteries) have grown. They didn't say how much, but they did say that they have grown. ANSWER TO PRAYER!!!! Secondly, her heart and lungs looked good and strong considering all that is wrong with it. She has a total of 6 MAPCA's, 3 for the right side of the heart and 3 for the left side of the heart.
The plan: Dr. Hanley has a "Cath Conference" tomorrow morning at 6:30am where he will meet with the cardiologists and review the images from todays hearth cath and he also talks about his other patients that will be having surgery within the next few weeks. Around 7am the anesthesiologist will leave the conference and come and tell us what they plan on doing in surgery exactly, then he will proceed to take MJ to the operating room. Surgery should start around 9am (11am Memphis time!)
The Physician Assistant is the one that gave us our pre-op talk. She works with Dr. Hanley every day and is his right hand woman. She thinks that they will do a sternotomy (open her chest via her breastbone) rather than a thoracotomy (go in through the right or left side of the chest). Because of this approach, they should be able to gather the arteries for both sides of the heart during this operation, rather than going back in a second time in a few months to do the other side. MJ's MAPCA's are all placed close together so they should be able to do this. What they are unsure of at this point, and won't know until surgery is if they will be able to do a complete repair, which means closing the hole in her heart. That all depends on what the pressures in the lungs read during the surgery. If not, she will have to come back within 3-6 months to have the complete repair. If they are able to do it all at once (which is what we are praying for), she would only need to have heart caths periodically and would have to have "conduit" replaced as she grows and gets bigger. She said that some people go as long as 12 years! All of the tissue and parts that they will be putting in MJ is from a cadaver (aka a dead person!) or from her own heart. They will use part of her pericardial sac to close the hole in her heart if they are able to do that. Pretty amazing stuff.
They talked to us a little bit about what will happen post-op as well. She will more than likely be on the breathing machine for at least 1-2 days. There is something called reperfusion injury that occurs and depending on the severity of that, determines what length of time she is on the ventilator. Reperfusion injury is when the lungs are not used to having an abundant supply of blood flow and aren't used to having the blood come from the proper place on the body. This can cause massive swelling for MJ over a period of days. This is usually what determines how long they are on the ventilator and how long she will have the chest tubes. She will probably be in the ICU for about a week, depending on how well she does. The shortest amount of time that we will be here is about 2 weeks, but it all depends on how well she does.
I am just SO thankful that God has blessed MJ so much. Thank ya'll for the prayers, they are working and it is awesome to see how!!!! I will keep ya'll updated tomorrow when I know something. It may be a few hours, but I will at some point. We have already been told that we will not have many updates from surgery as the surgeon and his staff do not have the time to come out. If anyone updates us it will be someone from anesthesia. It should take at bare minumum 8 hours, but more likely 10-12 hour surgery. Thanks for the prayers!!!!!!!! GOD IS SO GOOD.