Today is Heart Day, promoting awareness of congenital heart defects.
As you all know, this subject is near and dear to our hearts. We have more than one experience with CHD's in our extended family.
Natalie has done quite well with her single functioning ventricle. She is out growing her "Glenn" physiology and so we are anticipating her Fontan surgery in April.
Last Friday, Natalie met a new cardiologist as her cardiologist that she has known since birth is retiring. Dr. Christiansen discussed the Fontan with us. Natalie is definitely ready. Her oxygen sats dropped from 85% to 75% in the past 6 months. She is much more winded with any type of activity and I've been noticing some puffiness in her face in the mornings. Dr. C thought that this may be due to her outgrowing her Glenn and needing to press on to the Fontan. She is weighing in at just 33 pounds, not gaining any weight for the past six months but has sprouted up a little bit and it 40 inches tall.
She had an EKG and Echo done also. Her EKG was perfect. It's hard to believe that she had such a rough time with arrhythmias when she was two months old. So many difficulties that the surgeons were thinking that she might need to go down the transplant route. We thank the Lord that her arrhythmias resolved themselves through much prayer and medication and she hasn't had any issues with rhythm since. Her echo hasn't changed since August according to the cardiologist. He speculated that some of her drop in oxygen saturation may be due to her developing more collateral circulation. We wouldn't know for sure if that is the case unless she were to go for a cath.
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| Natalie with new cousin Lacy |
So the next step is for the Anchorage cardiologist to present her to Seattle cardiology team for the Fontan procedure. Then we will hear from scheduling. Tim and I would both like for her to have surgery before the middle of April...but we all know that scheduling in a surgical setting is always fluid-subject to change. We are praying that she will remain healthy up until that point and that all the details will work together to get her and our family there. We are hoping that for her sake and the coping mechanisms of all of our children that we will be able to experience this together and not thousands of miles apart.
We are very thankful and grateful for how well our daughter has done with her half-a-heart. God is good...all the time.
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