Met the Surgeon

Dr. John Iguidbashian, the pediatric cardiac surgeon just stopped by to de-brief us about how the surgery went. He was his usual confident, calming self. In his words, everything went as planned and he feels like it was a success. They opened up the arch and added in some cadaver parts to the arch so that flow will increase and promote growth, he said that was the difficult part. He then tried to close the smaller hole (VSD) but was unsuccessful (this one is so small it will not effect him and will close on it's own so they are not concerned about it). Dr. John then closed the large VSD and it sealed up "nicely"...he left the chest cavity open so the heart swelling will come down. There is some congestion in his lungs which will stress the heart a bit so they are going to slowly let him recover with assistance so these minor, every day issues don't stress his newly repaired heart...so things are looking good. We were very excited to hear Dr. John's good news and get passed this latest hurdle! You can not imagine the relief. They warn us that many times it's one step forward, two steps back so we are not getting ahead of ourselves...but we are feeling very very blessed. Thank you Dr. King and Dr. Iguidbashian for being the best at what you do! They were the ones who made the call to go in and do it all at once through open heart...Dr. John confirmed that was the right call, the two step approach would not have worked...