Surgery on Tuesday

This past Monday, Mary and I took Joseph to the cardiologist for his check up. While the doctors are very happy with his growth and strong heart, there is still a narrowing of the aorta that needs to be dealt with. In consultation with the ENT surgeon, they have decided to postpone the surgery to remove the nasal tubes and instead do the angioplasty on Tuesday November 27. It is scheduled for 7am and they may keep Joseph overnight just to be sure everything is OK.

This change of plans has taken a little getting used to. We are just not quite ready for another procedure for his heart. Compared to his heart surgery this is a minor procedure, but somehow that fact is not very comforting. Joseph is so happy and looks so very healthy that we still reject the notion that anything is wrong. However, we have seen the blood pressure difference that indicates that his aorta need to be opened up some more. So, on Tuesday morning we will head down to Childrens Hospital and once again wait it out while he undergoes surgery. In this procedure they enter the femoral artery in the leg and pass a catheter up into his heart. After checking to make sure everything is OK with his ticker they will take some x-rays using dye and get the exact measurements for the balloon procedure. They will then pass a balloon into the artery and up to the aorta and expand it ever so quickly to stretch out the narrowed part of the aorta. The whole procedure will take about an hour, but from when we hand him over to when we get him back will be about 3 hours. Those are hours we do not look forward to.

Once again we will rely on the community of friends and family to bolster our spirits. We are forever grateful.

Kenny and Mary