Monday, November 24, 2014

Surgery #3 - Open Heart Surgery

They took Abby back for her open heart surgery at about 7:45 this morning, and we just got word that they've gotten started at 9:30am. 

We talked to the surgeon this morning, who said that he'll be closing Abby's ASD and PDA (but leaving the VSDs alone, as that would complicate the surgery greatly, and they don't believe they're causing any problems). In the grand scheme of open heart surgeries, an ASD closure is considered fairly straightforward, but Abby's case is made considerably more difficult by the severity of her hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. They will be taking extra measures to protect her heart during surgery because of this, but the surgeon and anesthesiologist expressed that this was very concerning to them.  They don't necessarily think that this surgery will solve all of her breathing problems, but we hope that it will at least help.

Abby's blood oxygen saturation levels started dropping again last night, so they put her back on oxygen support. Though this wasn't what we were hoping, it did give her a break from working so hard going into surgery today. She was sucking on her pacifier again and seemed pretty content.

Thank you to everyone for your ongoing prayers!




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