Saturday, June 13, 2009
so here we go, in the plainest english possible. this surgery, first of all, is called a glenn shunt and is the second of three surgeries that griffin needs in order to have proper blood oxygenation. the doctors have said he will never have a 'normal' heart, but rather an adapted heart that will allow him to function as close to any other normal child would. let me take you back, here is a diagram of what a normal heart looks like and then the heart defect that griffin has which is a single ventricle with pulmonary atresia.
where you see the vessel connecting the aorta and the pulmonary artery is the tube (BT Shunt) they put in when he was a week old. for this next surgery they will clamp that off and then take the superior vena cava from the right atrium and connect it directly to the pulmonary artery. you can see it in this next picture even though the heart defect in the picture is slightly different from what griffin has.
i am guessing this more confusing then helpful, so don't worry about it to much. this is mostly for the curious ones out there that want to know exactly what is going to be happening. more importantly here is what i need you to pray for. he will go in early wednesday morning where they will prep him and sedate him and then cut open his chest. after they have done that they will put him on a heart lung bypass machine. this essentially stops his heart and lung function and runs his blood through a machine. the biggest scare in this surgery is that your natural pacemaker or the nerve endings which spur your heart to pump on it's own are in the right atrium. so pray that nothing gets damaged in this process because the last thing we need is his heart to not pump properly after this surgery. it is going to be much more intense then the first surgery and he is also much more aware then when he was a week old which makes it harder when he is coming out of surgery. pray that the surgeons would do everything properly and there would be no complications and also that he recovers well. he is probably going to be in some significant pain and not sure what jsut happened to him. pray that the presence of God surrounds him when we can't hold him ourselves.
we covet your prayers over the next few weeks. we recognize that he is God's child and we are stewards of him taking care of him and raising him in the best way possible. it is comforting knowing that God has him in his arms and we can trust that He is the one who is in complete control and that He works all things out for good.
if you have questions feel free to write them in the comments and i'll get back to them as soon as i can. we will keep everyone updated throughout the whole process.
thanks
John and Amber
where you see the vessel connecting the aorta and the pulmonary artery is the tube (BT Shunt) they put in when he was a week old. for this next surgery they will clamp that off and then take the superior vena cava from the right atrium and connect it directly to the pulmonary artery. you can see it in this next picture even though the heart defect in the picture is slightly different from what griffin has.
i am guessing this more confusing then helpful, so don't worry about it to much. this is mostly for the curious ones out there that want to know exactly what is going to be happening. more importantly here is what i need you to pray for. he will go in early wednesday morning where they will prep him and sedate him and then cut open his chest. after they have done that they will put him on a heart lung bypass machine. this essentially stops his heart and lung function and runs his blood through a machine. the biggest scare in this surgery is that your natural pacemaker or the nerve endings which spur your heart to pump on it's own are in the right atrium. so pray that nothing gets damaged in this process because the last thing we need is his heart to not pump properly after this surgery. it is going to be much more intense then the first surgery and he is also much more aware then when he was a week old which makes it harder when he is coming out of surgery. pray that the surgeons would do everything properly and there would be no complications and also that he recovers well. he is probably going to be in some significant pain and not sure what jsut happened to him. pray that the presence of God surrounds him when we can't hold him ourselves.
we covet your prayers over the next few weeks. we recognize that he is God's child and we are stewards of him taking care of him and raising him in the best way possible. it is comforting knowing that God has him in his arms and we can trust that He is the one who is in complete control and that He works all things out for good.
if you have questions feel free to write them in the comments and i'll get back to them as soon as i can. we will keep everyone updated throughout the whole process.
thanks
John and Amber
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