Cathy is recovering nicely and the plan is for her to be discharged from the hospital today ending her 15 day stay. Yesterday was a day of "exploration" to try to unravel the mystery of Grants heart defects. He had a breathing tube put in yesterday only for the purposes of testing. They needed to regulate his breathing as part of the CT angiogram. We now finally have an official answer for Grant heart condition. Grant has Tetralogy of Fallot with Pulmonary Atresia. In an nutshell, Grant does not have a typical pulmonary artery to take de-oxygenated blood to the lungs. He has many small vessels called "collateral" doing this function for now.
What does this mean?.?.?... Grant will ultimately need surgery to correct this condition. The plan for now let him grow for 2-3 months and then do another heart cath to determin IF surgery is possible. That's right, IF. This news was a devastating blow yesterday. We have always known the risk of having any heart repair surgery, but yesterday we were told there is a possibility the defect can't be repaired surgically. If surgery is indeed possible, they will take all the collateral (small vessels) and use them to form a pulmonary artery. Sounds simple enough, but the main factor is not the difficulty of the procedure, but rather how much material with which they have to work. For now we will hope and pray he has enough material "collateral" to have the necessary surgery in 2-3 months. Unfortunately, a transplant is not an option since he does not have a a pulmonary artery (he would have the same problem with a new heart).
Please don't take this new as all gloom and doom. I can tell you he has a strong will to thrive and we will never give up on him. The good news is no surgery for now he may come home in 2-3 weeks if he continues to do well in the NICU. It will be nice to have my family (all 5 of us) under the same roof.
Thanks to all my family and freinds for your love and support. You will never know how much it means to have such a strong support system.
Grant is at Le Bonheur in NICU room 402 for those that want to visit. Sorry, no one under 18 allowed in the room (except siblings) and Grant!
Cathy and Mason--what a little fighter you appear to have! I am saddened and yet encouraged by your blog post and I will continue to pray for all of you guys and especially mighty little Grant! His pictures on your facebook are beautiful! He is so cute!
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