Open heart #3...done!

"Open chest"

   Maddi is such a strong little girl. They took her into the heart cath yesterday morning at 8:45 as planned. After injecting a type of die into her arteries to illuminate them on the x-ray they determined that it was not possible to be fixed by cath. (as I talked about in the last post) so they prepared her for open heart surgery again immediately. It caught us off guard when they came in to tell us, because that wasn’t what we were expecting. But…God expected it, and He already knew the outcome!

  

   The aneurysm was formed on the conduit that they placed into her heart during the surgery on February 21st, due to a combination of factors. They found that the infection was actually yeast, which is why the antibiotics weren’t working, as antibiotics treat bacteria. Yeast is a fungus. The antibiotics that she has been on for over a week now, have made her immune system lower. A combination of the yeast, the antibiotics and the fact that there were new suture lines from the previous surgery made it possible for the aneurysm to form. We were told that had she gone even another day that she was at risk of the aneurysm to rupture. It was at first overlooked and passed off as pneumonia. BUT GOD… brought it to light and the problem was found and addressed before it could do harm to our little girl.

   During the surgery they removed a portion of the conduit and all of the aneurysm and replaced it with another conduit with “extra sutures” this time, so that it shouldn’t form again. She did well during surgery and was able to come off of bypass on the first try this time with minimal bleeding. Her O2 stats came back up to better than normal levels, in the 90’s, her average is 75%.

"chest closed"

   Now they will continue to test the culture from the yeast to find what strand of yeast it is so that it can be treated appropriately. Today her chest was closed and they did an anti fungal wash inside her chest cavity before closing it to take care of any remaining yeast. Her stats are doing GREAT, We were told by the doctors that this was one of the best post-op recoveries they’ve seen (praise God) especially given the fact that it was a re-operation. Over the next couple of days she will come off of the ventilator and go through the whole process that she did last week all over again. And if all goes well, and it will, she would be able to come home with in around 3 weeks.

Thank you for all of your continued prayers and support. Prayer truly does work!!

<>< Isaiah 53:5 ><>


But He [was] wounded for our transgressions, He [was] bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace [was] upon Him; and with His stripes we [ARE] healed. That includes Maddi !!


-Mike