Burke is in Surgery

Burke's surgery was moved up to today because the surgeon had a cancellation. It was scheduled for today at 6am but shortly thereafter the procedure was bumped to 12noon because a newborn was life flighted in last night and needed the 6am time slot.

After all the administrative check-in was complete the Anesthesiologist came to get Burke prepped for surgery. With all the equipment and monitors that is required for this surgery the Anesthesiologist needs 1 to 1.5 hours of hooking Burke up to everything before the actual surgery can begin. That 1 hour or so gave Rachel and I time to meet with Dr. Kouretas (the surgeon) to discuss today's procedure.

The results of last Friday's MRI showed that Burke's Pulmonary Arteries have not grown very much. In fact, there is some indication that the right branch (the branch that in the past was growing quite well) is now shrinking and the left branch which was ballooned during the 2nd heart catheter (in June) has not grown like they had hoped it would. With these MRI results there is no way a full repair of Burke's heart can happen. The procedure that is planned now is very similar to his 1st surgery. I don't have AutoCAD on this computer so I will have to use some of the drawings from previous posts to explain what the new procedure is all about. The drawing below is of Burke's 1st heart surgery. The patch work that is shown in that drawing is very similar to what Dr. Kouretas is planning on doing during today's surgery - except a lot more of it. He said he is going to split-open and patch-over as much of the left and right branches as possible.

The other part of Burke's surgery today will be to remove the Central shunt that joins the two Arteries. When he removes this shunt he will sew up the hole in the Aorta (the artery shown in red) where the shunt was. He will then connect a conduit to the Pulmonary Artery that extends down into the Right Ventricle (as shown in Orange in the next drawing below labeled "Burke's 2nd Surgery plan "A"") The conduit will be 7 to 8 millimeters in diameter where as the old shunt was only 4 millimeters in diameter. This should provide ample blood flow to the Pulmonary Arteries and blood flow is what makes tissues grow. We hope and pray that the Arteries will respond to this increase in blood flow. Today's surgery is anticipated to last between 4 to 6 hours. Burke's heart will not need to be stopped but he will be hooked up to the heart-lung machine so that the blood can be oxygenated - since no blood will be going to the lungs while they work on the Pulmonary Artery.