Tuesday, March 27, 2018

Heart Surgery

    I cannot come up with a cute name for this post.  There is nothing cute about it.  The time is coming for Asher to get his heart repaired.
    A week after Good Friday, maybe we can call it Bad Friday, we will turn our boy over to the cardiac team.  They will put him to sleep.  Then they will first get a better look at his heart through a transesophogeal echocardiogram.  If they feel they have a decent chance of repairing his heart defect (atrial septal defect) through the cardiac cath, they will attempt it that way.  If they are successful, Asher will spend the night at the hospital for monitoring and go home and resume normal life the next day.
     If they don't feel it is safe to proceed with the cardiac cath, or they are unsuccessful, they will move him to the OR and perform open heart surgery while he is still under anesthesia.  They have booked him for both procedures.  If he has open heart surgery, they are predicting a 7-10 day hospital stay and a three week recovery.
     I asked the secretary who scheduled the procedures, what percentage of the time they book kids like this and have to perform open heart surgery, because I just wanted to know.  She said fifty percent of the time the child ends up with open heart surgery.
     Please pray they are successful using the cardiac cath method.
     At the end of the day, we know Asher will leave with a mended heart, but naturally we are hoping he does not have to undergo open heart surgery.