Heart Surgery

WOW, it has been a really long time since I have updated this. Life has been busy the last couple of months. Rose Nacheca continues to thrive here in Minnesota :) Her English is understandable to most everyone who talks to her now! She has grown 2.3 inches since she arrived here and gained 6 pounds! Aside from the frequent colds and ear infections she has been pretty healthy. She managed to escape the stomach flu in early December which was good since she really cannot afford to lose any weight!!

We met with the cardiologist for a repeat echo to check the hole in her heart. At the last appointment in August they told us the hole was 8 mm. They said that if we got her closer to 25 pounds they could easily fix the hole in the cath lab as a same day surgery with a patch. At the appointment today she weighed 23.4 pounds which is closer to 25 pounds but the hole in her heart had grown to between 11 and 12 mm. The weight gain and growth is good news, the growth of the hole is not. The cath lab surgery is ideal for holes of 11mm or less. So we are borderline for the cath lab being a possibility. The doctor said that there is a 50/50 chance they will be able to fix it in the cath lab versus open heart surgery. The benefit of the cath lab is that it is a same day surgery and way less invasive and minimul recovery time. Open heart surgery would be a major surgery requiring 5 days in the hospital (two of those days being in the ICU). There would be a big incision and scar on her chest but it would definitely fix the problem.

After discussing the options we have decided to go ahead and schedule the cath lab surgery for sometime next week and we will at the same time schedule the open heart surgery for 3 weeks from now. If the cath lab surgery is successful we will cancel the open heart surgery. If it is unsuccessful we will go ahead with the open heart as scheduled.

This is where your prayer comes in. Please pray that they would be able to fix her heart during the cath lab procedure! Open heart surgery is way more complicated, painful, a much longer hospital stay and a lot more expensive.

This little lady has beaten way worse odds than 50/50!!!! Please pray with us that this would be successful and would fix her little heart :)

We will also be going to a geneticists to see if they can determine which syndrome that she has so we can get a better idea of what her future may hold. The possibility of Noonan's syndrome was mentioned by the cardiologist today. I have a friend who has a child with this syndrome and she is doing great.

Thanks for the prayers!!!