GRACIE'S HEART CATHETERIZATION 8/27/07

Well, Gracie did amazing and waaaay better than we could have hoped for! Apparently, very often children who have Tetralogy of Fallot have their left or right pulmonary arteries that are not connected to the main pulmonary artery but thankfully hers are. This is good! It turns out her left pulmonary artery is half the size of her right one though and this is definitely not good. They will repair it during her open heart surgery. They will do this by cutting part of it straight down the middle and then put a patch over it to enlarge it. As more blood flows through it then it should continue to grow over time. The doctor did say that they will monitor it very closely after surgery and that almost definitely it will need more procedures and/or medication to treat it. We don't understand this completely and will need to ask more questions for clarity. We were definitely "sidetracked" by the repair the doctor ended up doing that none of us knew would need done. The doctor came out of the operating room to request our permission to carterize (by implanting a tiny coil) in a blood vessel that had enlarged. It had enlarged due to trying to compensate for her pulmonary arteries not pumping the amount of blood to the lungs that it should be. We are still unsure whether they will be able to do all the repairs during her surgery in a few weeks but we are hoping to get a call tomorrow. We will try to post some pictures from today soon but I need to get to bed since I have to get up early in the morn to take the boys to their first day of school. Thank you for all your prayers.