Success!

We have just had our post-operative conference with the surgeon. The surgery was a complete success.

Dr C said that he was pleased with the outcome and that it went better than he expected. Main points:

1) During surgery he was able to clamp the aorta at the beginning of the aortic arch (far across) which was unexpected. This enabled the surgeon to insert a patch to enlarge much of the aortic arch rather than simply the area of the PDA and coarctation. This gives him much improved flow over the hypoplastic arch area.

2) Pressures are good following surgery.

3) There was a significant discrete coarctation. When Dr C tied off the ductal tissue the coarc completely obstructed the aorta indicating that if this had not been prenatally diagnosed wren would have gone into heart failure as the PDA closed.

4) The arch looked a lot better when the surgeon looked at it than it did on echo. It didn't look as small. Doubt still remains as to whether the valve is sufficient but so far so good.

5) Wren had his aorta clamped for 19 minutes. (There are instances of paralysis following clamping >30 minutes.)

6) Wren is sedated and has many many tubes, central lines etc. They had difficulty inserting IVs so the prep stage took 2 hours. The lines remain in, in case they need to give blood. So far they have not had to give blood.

I am running out of battery power so that will do for now. We are going back to see him shortly. If he remains stable all night (hopefully!) they will evaluate him in the morning and consider pulling him out of sedation etc.

He is intubated through the nose.