The Schedule

Well yesterday started out great!! After Tracy's c-section and my visit with Kimball at Children's, I went back to UW to stay with Tracy for the night. She was doing so well so fast. She was able to keep food down, which wasnt the case for the first c-section and was also able to get up and move around (which was a surprise). In the morning (18th of July) things were looking even better. All the nurses and doctors were so surprised at the progress she was making that Tracy was actually discharged fron the hospital 1 day after her c-section. This brought Tracy's spirits up knowing that she could visit Kimball anytime she wanted now.
Many people have been of great help to us and we appreciate everyone and their generosity. Tracy's uncle brought up his 40 ft. fifth wheel for us to stay in during our time here. Children's has a RV section that the fifth wheel is parked in, which is helpful being so close to the hospital.
We were able to meet with Doctor Jones yesterday who is the cardiac surgeon. He has studied the ECG's and ultrasounds to make some determinatins as what steps should be taken. We are scheduled for Monday to have a cathader procedure to look at Kimball's heart and see what exactly the inside structure of his heart looks like and to perform some procedures to allow his heart to go through less stress. Dr. Jones informed us that he is going to a international convention for heart surgeons on this very diagonsis that Kimball has. He will be leaving on Saturday and returning on Sunday to prepare for this procedure on Monday. He will be performing this procedure live in front of the worlds leading heart surgeons that will be broadcasted back to the international convention. This is a great opportunity to teach other surgeons the course of action to take to help out more new borns who have this diagnosis. Dr. Jones was the first to perform this cathader, and what it entails is the following:

• First the scope will be placed in through a vein at his hip and follow this vein back to the heart.
• Once it reaches the heart, they will widen an opening that already exists in the heart to help supply the left side with more blood.
• Then the scope will go into the Right Ventricle (the one that is underdeveloped) and check the coronary arteries that might be malformed. These are propbaly malformed since the valve exiting the the right ventricle has closed up.
• If there is no blood leaving these coronary arteries (which there shouldnt be and which we are hoping for) they will continue to the pulmonary valve which has fused shut and burn a hole with the scope and open the valve back up.
• If this step looks good they will proceed up to the Patent Ductus Arteriosis (the artery that connects the Aorta and the Pulmonary artery at birth and over time disappears). If this Ductus looks ok they can balloon the ductus open which will allow blood to flow freely without medicine.

These steps if all could be completed would be the most beneficial. If they could perform all steps there would be no need to perorm the more invasive open heart surgery but would wait for 3-7 months to perform the next Glenn procedure which would be open heart surgery. If one of these steps doesnt look good they will pull out and have to schedule Kimball in a couple of days for the open heart surgery.

Childrens Hospital is a great place and we really like the care that is being given. This weekend will hopefully give us more rest than what we have had the last week.

Thank you for all of your prayers, we are doing fine to this point and Kimball looks strong to this day as well. More to come so check back in.