The Puddles

We just met with Ben’s surgeon, Dr Fraser. After nearly 12 hours, Ben is finally done with surgery. 

He said when they looked at his heart the aortic valve had drawn up on itself and was not repairable. He said that the heart wall had thickened significantly (yuck) but that there was not much to the sub aortic membrane (yeah).  He also said it took a while to get to the heart due to all of the scar tissue that he had to cut through to get to the heart to look at it. 

He said that the best option was the Ross procedure. He cut out the aortic valve and widened the area for the new valve to be placed. He then removed the pulmonary valve which is tricky due to its placement in the heart. He put the pulmonary valve in place of the aortic valve and then used a 21mm donor valve to replace the pulmonary valve. He said the 21 mm valve is an adult sized valve. 

Ben bled significantly. They went through all of the blood products that we donated and a lot more. Dr. Fraser felt the bleeding was mainly due to all of the stitches that they placed today. Ben will be kept sedated and intubated all night in order to keep his blood pressure stable. Hopefully they will take him off of the vent in the morning. But we will wait and see. 

The best news of the day is that Dr. Fraser expects Ben to get 10 years out of this repair!!!!!! Praise God!! We had expected to be doing this again in just a few years. That was the best news ever! We had totally not expected it, so we were overjoyed. 

So the most difficult part is behind us but we still have a ways to go. We ask that you keep Ben in your prayers and thank God for the surgeons and medical staff at Texas Children’s hospital.