Burke's Anatomy (Part 2)

The drawing below shows what Burke's 1st surgery was all about. The surgeon linked the two major arteries together with a Central Shunt so that blood could get to the lungs by bypassing the non-functional Pulmonary Valve. The detail on the left of this drawing shows what the Patch is all about. The surgeon slit open Burke's Pulmonary Artery where it splits into the left and right branches. He then split open a Cadavers Artery and sewed the ends together to make a larger artery. The results of this 1st surgery brought Burke's oxygen saturation levels from the low 50's to the mid 70's.

Graphic #4

I am jumping ahead to Burke's 2nd Heart Catheter. A Heart Catheter is where a Cardiologist inserts a small tube into one of the major veins in the growing area. He then pushes that tube through that vein (the vein essentially acts as a conduit) and into the heart. Once the tube is in the heart the cardiologist can do a number of things. One in particular is to inject die into the blood that makes the blood visible with X-rays. This then helps the doctors see the different parts of the heart. This is what Burke's 1st heart catheter was really all about. We learned alot about what his anatomy looked like from this procedure but there really isn't anything cool to show as a result of it. The 2nd Heart Catheter on the other hand was a bit more involved. The surgeons not only inject die, they also tried a few other things in hopes of making progress towards a normal heart without an actual surgery. The drawing below illustrates how the Cardiologist was trying to pick away at the Pulmonary Valve in hopes of getting it to tear open but he was unsuccessful.

Graphic #5

With the help of the die, the Cardiologist saw that Burke's upper small hole had healed over. This was good news but the Doctors thought that the hole was probably working in Burke's favor because it was allowing un-oxygenated and oxygenated blood to mix - something that for Burke is a good thing. The drawing below illustrates the small hole being re-opened by pushing the catheter into the then almost completely sealed off small hole then ballooning the catheter up to stretch open the hole.

Graphic #6

This next graphic has a little background that makes it more meaningful than it otherwise would be. Before this heart catheter procedure began the cardiologist explaned that the main objective of this procedure was to baloon the left branch of the pulmonary artery. To do this, he was banking on the fact that he would be able to work his way through the Pulmonary vavle (as shown in graphic #5). If he was unable to get through that valve then the only other way to get to the left branch of the Pulmonary Artery was to go through the shunt. Going through the shunt however was not something he was willing to do because of the likelyhood of causing damage to that shunt and because of the overall risk to Burke's already fragile well being.

While this procedure was going on the nurses said they would give Rachel and I periodic updates. The first update was to tell us that they were not able to get through the Pulmonary Valve. Needless to say, this news made our hearts completely sink. I can still vividly remember the overwhelming feeling of that moment.

I'll finish the rest of this post later.