Emma update

Latest CaringBridge update on baby Emma:


"Dr. Mitchell just came out to give us his report. Overall he said this was an unusual case with some anatomy he has never seen. Emma is a Hypoplastic Left Heart (HLHS) but he had never seen the left superior vena cava (SVC) on a HLHS. He said occasionally they see it with other defects. (This is the "opposite" anatomy they had told us about a couple days ago that was the reason they checked for the spleen) Overall this changed slightly how the aorta was reconstructed to reduce pressure against the SVC. He said the issue with the aortic patch twisting came down to attaching the coronary artery to the "wrong" side initially for her anatomy. It can be attached in two places and in the end he chose the wrong side the first time. Overall Dr. Mitchell seemed very optimistic about how things stand now with the current anatomy and said she should be set up well with it for the Glenn. The things that were complications today should not impact the Glenn procedure.

Tonight into tomorrow the staff will be watching the bleeding. There is a possiblity of needing "exploration" which means they would go back in if the bleeding is still too excessive and clean the area up again also looking to see where the bleeding is coming from. They did leave the chest cavity "open" and hope to be able to "close" within 2-5 days once the internal swelling decreases. The "open" chest is covered with an opaque dressing that is fully sealed to allow the proper fluids to stay in the chest cavity and keep external fluids from entering. When they are ready to "close" Emma will go back under anesthesia and the team will wire the sternum and stitch everything up. They are also watching her blood pressures closely for the overall swelling to go down.

We saw Emma get wheeled by about a half hour ago. We just saw her head, but she looked much better than I expected. They had indicated she was pretty swollen due to higher pressures in her head. Now we are just waiting for the transfer of care to the CICU and for her to get stabilized there so we can go be with her. It could still be another hour before we can go in. Emma has been assigned 2 nurses dedicated to her tonight to monitor everything after such a long day in the OR.

Once again thanks to everyone for all the prayers and messages to help get through such a long day. It is very much appreciated.

Since it has taken so long to get this final update written for the night, Dr. Mitchell stopped by again on his way out to say that they have scheduled Emma for exploration for tomorrow morning. They plan to check bleeding and also to repack the chest based on the amount of swelling which can help better control the pressures seen in the chest cavity."