Care4Conway: Post Op Day #5 -AM Update

Monday, August 13, 2012

Post Op Day #5 -AM Update

Sorry for no update last night. Connie wanted me to snuggle with him and he took forever to fall asleep. Then I was pretty tired. Yesterday was just a lay low day. He took a huge nap late in the day and then we took him to the main hospital's cafeteria and outside to eat in the courtyard. He was pretty down after that and asked to go back to the room. On the way back we snooped around a bit in the old hospital, where his previous two surgeries were. We couldn't access most of the 5th floor, but just seeing it and looking down the hallway brought back a flood of memories. And if anyone would ever complain about "life" in the new place, they would just need one look at the old one and they'd quickly count their blessings! Once he got back to his room we started to see his sparkle back in his eyes. He wanted to tickle fight and "box" me with his feet. Basically he kicked while I pretended to punch him. He reluctantly took a shower (he wanted a bath) and got all cleaned up and weighed before climbing back in bed for a movie. He was up late since he took such a long nap. He finally fellasleep sometime after 11:15 or so. Our boy was up bright and early this morning and we visited the playroom for 50 minutes of bowling sets and Wii baseball and bowling. He just ate some dry cereal for breakfast and is back in bed watching Toy Story 3. The plan today is just to hang out and wait to be taken down the hall for discharge studies. Hopefully everything looks good and we can get out of here tomorrow morning.

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Conway's Heart Story

Conway's Heart Story

Conway David Beckemeier was born on March 3, 2007. His heart defects went undetected during pregnancy and he was diagnosed at two days of age with L-TGA, a large VSD, sub pulmonic stenosis and Ebstein’s Anomaly. Just before turning six months of age, he underwent open heart surgery to reroute the bloodflow in his heart. Called the "double switch", this procedure is the most technically challenging for pediatric cardio-thoracic surgeons to perform. The version of the double switch that Conway received on 8/28/07 was called the Rastelli-Senning with VSD closure and sub pulmonic resection. He suffered a grand mal seizure following the surgery that lasted over an hour and had several other post-op setbacks including surgical heart block, which required another operation on 9/18/07 to insert a pacemaker. Following surgery and such a long hospital stay, Conway developed an oral aversion (he would not eat) and he was 100% NG tube fed for eight months. He also lost muscle tone and required both physical and occupational therapies. In April 2008, he had a cardiac cath and attempted balloon angioplasty on his pulmonary arteries that did not work. Although his recovery was very long, he had a solid year or so of being a "normal" kid . Then in May of 2009, it was discovered that Conway was having rhythm disturbances, specifically atrial flutter. His pacemaker allowed it to go undetected for several weeks until he showed signs of heart failure and was admitted to the ICU for a week to be placed on IV heart meds and undergo cardioversion on 5/6/09. He went home and his heart function started recovering when he had another episode of flutter (6/16/09). This time, he was again hospitalized and put on IV milrinone, but he converted back to normal sinus rhythm by himself. At that time he was placed on the anti-arrhythmia drug, amiodarone. On 7/22/09 he had to be cardioverted again for yet another episode of flutter. The following week, he got worse instead of better. His cardiologist did a full work up and it was determined that his aortic, mitral and tricuspid valves were all leaking worse and were felt to be the cause of his heart failure. On 8/24/09 he had a cardiac cath and attempted ablation. The electrophysiologist was unable to induce a single arrhythmia. Then, just two days later, he went into atrial flutter on his own. He was placed back in the cath lab where he underwent mapping and a total of 17 burns were made to try to knock out his arrhythmias for good. The next day, 8/27/09, he had his second open heart surgery to repair his mitral valve called ring annuloplasty. He also had a partial Maze procedure done. His surgeries are performed at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor). This time he was discharged just six days later! His Left Ventricular function improved drastically. In December 2010 we noticed he began getting more winded during physical activity. A January 2011 cath showed that he is outgrowing his RV-PA gortex conduit, but he was not symptomatic enough to warrant intervention. In April 2012 Conway’s fatigue increased and an echo at the end of May revealed that the ratio between the right and left sided pressures has gotten too high and it is time to replace the homograft that was placed when he was five months old. He had a cardiac cath on 5/25/12 which confirmed the echo findings. He had surgery on 8/8/12 to replace his pulmonary valve and RV-PA conduit, add an additional pacing wire to his left ventricle, and change his generator to a bi-ventricular model which is shown to preserve function and help the heart muscle pump more efficiently/effectively.