Well today was Ethan's cardiology appointment. His oxygen saturations were 66%. This is normal for him, but still concerning for the docs since that is his number at rest. When he is moving around it definitely decreases.
We started off the day with an echo. Ethan was a bit cranky and didn't get as much sleep as he needed the night before, but overall the appointment went well. The echo finished and it appears that his pulmonary artery that was worked on during the cath is still open thankfully! This is a big relief so far!
Next we had the meeting with Dr. Zahka. He discussed the fact that cardiology met after his last cath. They all decided that the previous plan for surgery (the shunt connecting his aorta/carotid to his left lower lung) isn't the best option after all. They are concerned about the fact that if any bleeding issues arise with his aorta they wouldn't be able to stop it. That would obviously be disastrous.
Instead of that surgery, the plan is to replace his current homograft. This is basically the same surgery he had at 5 months. They will remove his old homograft that is now too small for him and replace it with a larger homograft. I assume it will be the same pig material that he currently has, but I'm not positive. I also hope that they will fix the aneurysm that is in his heart since it is in the same location as the homograft currently.
This surgery obviously is more complicated than the first plan. This will be open heart surgery where they stop Ethan's heart and put him on a heart/lung bypass machine. This is also going to be cracking his chest again instead of going through his ribs. They'll have the added complications of all the previous scar tissue to deal with during this procedure as well.
The plan is to do this surgery in about 3 weeks. We have an appointment with pulmonology on Monday. We will page Dr. Zahka during this appointment and he will meet with us then. The timing of this surgery is all based on his lungs. If his lungs are too sick he won't be able to come off the vent easily and will make his recovery that much more difficult and dangerous. He is improving a lot so far, so hopefully a few more weeks with his new medications and breathing treatments will make his lungs much better.
They are also considering when to do another bronch. They don't know if we should do one soon before the surgery to see if his lungs are healthy enough, or if we should do one at the start of surgery with the expectation to cancel surgery if his lungs aren't healthy enough. We'll probably have a better idea of that plan after our appointment on Monday.
Please keep us all in your prayers. We pray especially that Ethan's lungs clear up and we can proceed with these procedures. I don't yet know the date of surgery so obviously i don't know how this will coincide with his birthday and/or how it will affect the start of school. He will need a lot of prayers for recovery since this open heart surgery will be much more difficult to recovery from than the "through the ribcage" surgery. There is a lot more pain involved with the healing of his sternum and everything in this. I will keep everyone posted with the official plans once I get them, but we of course appreciate all of your love and support so much!
And by the way...the big news from the other day was Ethan was able to throw out the first pitch at the Indian's game on July 4th! It was so exciting and he did such a great job! I am going to wait to post up a blog about it until I get the pictures from the Indians and a video of him throwing out the ball. :) Needless to say Ethan loved it and had a great time - we all did!
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