The time has come for Maddox to have his first heart surgery. We had a routine visit last week with our Cardiologist where we found out he would need an aortic valve replacement. We knew this day was coming, but I thought we had at least another year. The doctor reccomended replacing his aortic valve because of the regurgitation from the balloon put in at birth. This procedure was necessary but caused a leaky valve and that is enlarging the heart and causing it to work too hard. The procedure he will have is called The Ross Procedure. The surgeon will replace the aortic valve with the pulmonary valve and replace the pulmonary valve with a donor tissue valve. The surgery will be around 5 hours. He will be in ICU for a couple of days and then move into a standard room. We hope to be in the hospital for no more than 5-7 days. We meet with the surgeon in a couple of weeks to find out more and tour the Congenital Heart Surgery Unit at Medical City Children's Hospital where he will have his surgery.
I've spent many hours this past week reading everything I can about his procedure and surgeon. I'm trying to focus on the preparation instead of my worries. I know he has to have the procedure, so I'm going to go into it knowledgeable and prepare him as best I can. He doesn't know yet, but we've ordered books that will hopefully help us explain it to him.
I'm not too thrilled with it being around Christmas, but I will make sure he knows he will be extra spoiled this year.
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