Change of Plans

I think in the last post Gary mentioned the echo that was going to be done this morning. Dr Brames came in a few hours after the echo was done and told us that he feels that Landon will need the BT Shunt (1st surgery). His sats have been trending down over the last few days and Dr Brames said this is an indication of some narrowing in Landon's heart where the diminished chamber is that causes his sats to get lower and lower. As he grows and his heart beats stronger (just like all babies) the pressure will become greater, leading to an increase in the narrowing and decrease of his sats. The BT Shunt will provide an extra source of blood to the lungs that although it will allow some of the blood to mix (which is normally a bad thing), will increase his sats and hopefully make him more pink.

This is a big change from planning to take him home today, but after some of the "incidents" of the past few days and the discussion back and forth on whether or not he needs to be on oxygen, we are not surprised that he's not coming home today. It's a very difficult line to walk and it seemed for a while to vary from shift to shift based on the nurse on whether or not the oxygen was needed. We knew Dr B would be able to give us a more definitive answer on that and how things were looking. It's unbelievably overwhelming to think about sending our 1 week old into heart surgery but we're trying to process 1 day (sometimes 1 hour) at a time and trust that God knows what's best for our baby and He has a plan in all of this. It is certainly not going to be easy; we feel like the past week has been incredibly difficult and we know it's only going to get harder from here. On the bright side, Dr B did think Landon's chances of doing well through the surgery were very good based on the facts that 1) he is a good size 2) he has been eating very well 3) his sats have been fairly good overall (meaning they could be much worse) and 4) the pulmonary valve and arteries are a good size. All of these things mean that he almost missed out on the first surgery but they also give us hope that he'll make it through surgery and recovery like a champ.

The plan right now is to transport him to Denver via ambulance tomorrow afternoon (he'll be on lines, oxygen, etc) and I (Allison) should be able to ride along in the front seat. They are working on scheduling the surgery, and we anticipate it will be Tuesday or Wednesday of this week. We should be able to stay at the Ronald McDonald house near Denver Children's Hospital as long as they have a room available.

It's probably obvious that we are physically, mentally and emotionally drained (I'm not even going to bother to check this post for typos) and we haven't even gotten to the most difficult part yet. God has given us strength so far to handle what we've faced and I know he'll continue to give us what we need for each day. There are tons of details that I'm forgetting right now because I'm too braindead but if they are important enough they'll rise to the surface later and we'll include them in a future post. Thanks so much for your support and concern. So many people have offer to "do" something and we're so appreciate of that- right now it's hard to really know what things we can have people do, so please know that if we think of anything besides prayer we will give you a call.