We went to the hospital this morning for Hannah's heart surgery. She was scheduled to have an ASD closure performed using a Catheter-based procedure. Generally, this is the 'preferred' method for closing the hole in the heart simply because it is less evasive.
The procedure basically consists of taking a tube and inserting into a vein in the leg. The tube is run up to the heart where the procedure takes place. It's amazing this type of heart surgery can even be performed via a small incision around your groin area.
One of the tools that Doctors use to see what is going on is inserting a tube down your esophagus and performing an ultrasound on the heart. This view allows you a very good look at the back of the heart, where it is difficult to see from a standard chest ultrasound.
This morning, the ultrasound was as far as we got. The pictures showed that the hole was a little larger than expected (approx. 2/3rds of an inch). However, the halt came when the discovery was made that there was not enough tissue around the hole for the device to attach to. This is a very important requirement before the device can be used. If the device is not fully attached to tissue surrounding the entire whole, there would be risk of complications in the future. In one sense, it was good that we were able to get identified the missing tissue before the catheter-based method was used. At the same time, it was very disappointing to hear Hannah was not a candidate for the device.
This basically brings us to plan B which is open heart surgery and obviously will be more involved. There will be another surgeon who will perform the open heart procedure, probably in the next several weeks. Our cardiologist has recommended that we do this before the cold season hits which with it comes along RSV season. Our target is hopefully sometime in September – we should here from the scheduling department in the next couple of days.