Luckily enough, my mother in law was available to take Corbin for a few days while Jake and I concentrate on Logan. We dropped him off this morning. I explained to him that he was going to stay with Nana for a couple of days while Mommy and Daddy went to the doctors with Logan. I told him that the doctors were going to fix Logan's heart so he could run really fast. He's still to little to understand what's going on. He was more excited that he was staying the night with Nana to even really care what we were doing. This was them saying goodbye to each other, and if this picture doesn't make you say "aww" then there is something wrong with you.
We got to the hospital at 1:30 for pre-admission testing. Logan has freshly come into the "stranger danger" phase, which isn't much fun when people need to put their hands on him. He didn't do too bad. The doctors are really great around here and I have to remind myself that they deal with this kind of thing all of the time. He had an EKG, his 02 struggled to get to 71, blood draws and an X-ray. This picture was taken after we were all done. He was not impressed. At. All.
So, the plan is to close the two holes in his heart, and place a conduit from his left ventricle to his lungs. They are not doing whats called, a double switch, which would correct the pumping of his heart. (Right now, the right ventricle is pumping to his body and his left ventricle is pumping to his lungs, the heart muscles are not built to pump this way.) Unfortunately, this double switch procedure is very high risk, and at this point, not something we should pursue, as his little body more than likely couldn't handle the change. This leaves us in the position that his heart will continue to beat inappropriately, or opposite, if you will. Eventually, his right ventricle will become enlarged due to the amount of extra workload it has taken on, and it will begin to fail. At that time, he will be a candidate for a heart transplant. This heart failure won't happen over night, but possibly 20 years from now. We will address a double switch sometime when it is more appropriate to avoid needing a transplant, but more on that when we get to that bridge.
We were also informed that Logan's defects put him at a higher risk for heart arrhythmia's, because of this, usually a pace maker is needed. We were told that there is a good possibility that the surgeon will be putting in pacemaker wires for future use while he is inside. This took us by surprise as we had never been told that he'd even be at risk for needing a pacemaker let alone how soon he may need one. We are still digesting all of this information. As always, things could change in the OR. The surgeon could decide to do something different that what has been planned. We won't know anything 100% until tomorrow after surgery.
Surgery is at 7:30 am, we have to be there at 6:30, poor little Logan can't have anything to eat, which may in fact, be the hardest part of the whole morning. Haha. He will be very mad that he cannot eat. They expect the surgery to take 5-7 hours, and recovery to be 2-3 weeks. They are going to try to get us home by Christmas, but really, the ball will be in Logan's court. If he needs time, he needs the time. We cannot rush him.
As I type this, he is sound asleep in his fancy hotel grade pack and play bed. We are hoping we can get as good of a nights sleep as possible, we will need the rest. Thank you all, as always, for the love, support and encouragement. We couldn't do this without you all. I will post another update after surgery, once we have all the information.
Special thank you to Carol and my mom for helping take care of Corbin, the house and the cats while we are away.
Some extra pictures of Logan enjoying hotel life.
Our prayers are with all of you. Logan the great will do awesome. Praying over the hands of your wonderful surgeon Dr. Alfieris. He was a great surgeon when Mike worked with him at Crouse hospital.
ReplyDelete<3 Stay strong!
ReplyDeleteThinking of you! ❤
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