Tuesday, February 3, 2009

an hour later

 We got to hold him for about an hour, and then when he was getting his first shots and everything in the nursery, we noticed that he wasn't crying. After some observation, the doctors became afraid of complications due to a lack of oxygen in his blood. He was then life flighted to St Francis in Tulsa, and we have been there since. He has had 3 surgeries, and is slated for one more. His problem is that when he was born, the two main veins that stem from a normal heart, the greater vessels were backwards. Here is a link explaining it.
http://www.cincinnatichildrens.org/health/heart-encyclopedia/anomalies/transposition.htm
God blessed him with a hole in the septum, the dividing wall between the ventricles, allowing good oxygen circulation despite the defect. The night he made it to St. Francis, they went into his heart via a catheter and inflated a balloon in the upper septum, allowing more oxygen flow. Then last Thursday, they went into the heart and made the change to his vessels (the procedure is called the Arterial Switch.) These procedures were both successful, and the doctors are pleased. The complication is that at the same time, Jack has had a problem with his lungs, which may be a result of the ventilator. It has really messed things up, and a couple nights ago he had to have a chest tube placed in his lung to drain it. Now we're waiting on the swelling to come down that happened when he had the surgery. When he is back to normal, they can finish closing his breast bone together and eventually take out the ventilator. Assuming everything goes well, next week, Jack will be 3 weeks old and we will have got to hold him for only one hour. So we are desperate to pick him up and for him to be better. Right now I'm driving back and forth every night when I have to work, and the rest of the time, staying in Tulsa at the Ronald McDonald house with Angi. Our older son, Gaige, is staying with his grandpa. Thanks for your prayers. They mean more than anything else right now.


Tony and Angi

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