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My Son's visit to see the Cardiologist. 10.23.07 (Kind of LONG!)
- Oct 24, 2007 at 1:53 PM
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Well as expect my son will be having surgery within a few weeks from now. I'm not sure yet what type, but his Cardiologist will discuss it with the team on Monday and I'll get an answer in the middle of next week. I'm not really down about it this time because I expected it and so I've been preparing myself and doing a lot of reading to make sure I know exactly what's going on with my son. I'm leaning more so towards having the Ross Procedure done if he has to have another open heart surgery done right now. If he has the balloon procedure done right now it will only buy him a few months which is still better because it will give him a little more time to grow and the bigger he is the easier the open heart surgery will be. If he gets the balloon procedure done they will go through the arteries in his neck. They went through arteries his legs last time but because the narrowing in his aortic valve was so severe they couldnt even get the cathedar through that way so they had to start over and go through the veins in his legs instead which leads them to go through the aortic valve the opposite way (the outside going in, instead of inside the valve going out). When they went that way last time it cause a tear in another one of his valves which cause a bad leak and led him to having his first open heart surgery.
The Ross Procedure- The Ross Procedure is when they would cut his pulmonary valve out and replace the aortic valve with the pulmonary valve. They would then put an artificial valve where his pulmonary valve was. This works because the left side of the heart (where the aortic valve is) is basically the most critical side of your heart. You would not be able to survive without an aortic valve. The pulmonary valve you could live without. You could be born without one a lives for years. If we were to replace his Aortic valve with a donor's valve it would not grow with his heart because it is dead tissue. However, if we replace his Aortic valve with his pulmonary valve we may never have to worry about replacing his Aortic valve again! It's his own live tissue so it WOULD grow with his heart. The only problem with this is that the pulmonary valve has chances of just not working correctly where the aortic valve is and if that were to happen then he would need two donor valves (one for the Aortic and one for the Pulmonary) which means then we would have two different heart problems! Dr. Ross started this procedure in the 1960's, but no other doctor's followed in his foot steps until aobut 15 years ago. They started to realize that his procedure actually did work. TX Children's Hospital has been doing this procedure for 12 years. Out of the 12 years they have been doing the procedure they have never had a problem with the pulmonary valve not working properly after replacing the Aortic valve with it. I'm hoping we don't break this chain!! Sorry if I lost some of you I just thought I would kind of try to explain what was going on....
Comments:
Your little man is in my prayers. I couldn't even begin to imagine how you must be feeling. Just stay positive and just know that you're doing the right thing by researching all of his options. That makes you a #1 mother in my book. Good luck, and make sure to keep us all updated.
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