Oh dear Lord, what a day! Frankly, I’m glad it’s over and Stevie is heading to bed. I was so anxious leading up to this procedure, but as promised, game faces were ON this morning. We were all feeling ready to kick some ass.

Well, some of us more than others. Once we got into the hospital Stevie sort of fell apart, but can you really blame him? And on top of just being difficult and whiny, the procedure didn’t exactly go as planned. Let me try to explain. Although the doctor drew me pictures and showed me a model so I could understand. You’ll have to just go off my words. Good luck with that.

Starting at the beginning; Stevie was born with a heart defect. The technical name is Tetralogy of Fallot with Pulmonary Artresia. It simply means he had a hole in his heart and was missing his pulmonary valve. To fix this, Stevie had open heart surgery where they patched the hole and used a cow’s jugular valve to create a new pulmonary valve for Stevie. That valve (or contegra) is now around 8 years old and has reached a point where it is narrowing and shriveling and needs to be repaired or replaced.

To avoid another (4th) open heart surgery, the plan was to repair it in the cath lab. They wanted to try inserting a catheter through the groin up to the heart and ballooning the artery to place a stent. This would not repair the valve, per say, but it would act as a cage to prop up the artery and make room for blood to flow more freely. This could have gotten Stevie several more years with the same valve.

Unfortunately, he has what they call a “coronary variant” (an irregular placement of a coronary artery). His Left Anterior Descending Artery (LAD) is in the wrong spot. And it lies directly beneath his pulmonary valve. If they ballooned the valve or inserted a stent, it would compress the LAD, which could be fatal.

COOOOOL.

So, the doctors and surgeons deliberated, deciding that it was ultimately too risky.

And unfortunately that means the valve will need to be replaced the good ol’ fashioned way — open heart surgery. It’s not ideal because it’s such a huge surgery with a long recovery time, but it will be safer for him than attempting the stent.

I was not stoked on this news. I felt ready for this ordeal to be over with — or at least to extend the inevitable a little longer — and I really wanted today to be that day. But instead of “glad that’s over”, we now move those thoughts to the side and start planning for a bigger, badder surgery. Of course a few tears were shed, but I do also feel a sense of comfort. I trust that these doctors have our best interest in mind and I know they wouldn’t want Stevie to go through another open heart surgery unless he absolutely had to.

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So what now?

Well, doesn’t now just sound like a splendid time to drink all the wine and sleep for a week? I agree. The rest will come later.

THANK U, NEXT.

loves,
jaana