What Happens in Surgery?

Over the past fourteen months, we have done our best to explain the anatomy of Zachy's heart and the types of repair that take place in his surgeries. It's not easy to explain, especially since we don't fully understand it ourselves.

But recently I came across a video from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) that offers a much better explanation. CHOP is another one of the leading centers in the nation for pediatric cardiac surgery. The video features several doctors and surgeons discussing the three-stage repair of Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS). While Zachy doesn't have HLHS, his defect is very similar (his right ventricle, rather than the left, is hypoplastic, or small and non-functioning.) The final two surgeries he needs are identical to those for an HLHS baby. The first surgery this video discusses is the Norwood, which Zachy didn't need (instead, he had a pulmonary artery banding procedure.) The discussion of his Hemi-Fontan of this past June begins about five minutes into the video, and the Fontan procedure he awaits is discussed at about seven minutes. If you have time, though, it would be helpful for you to view the entire video, as if offers explanations and 3D anatomical illustrations. It gives me a better sense of what is going on!

This video could not be embedded, but simply follow this link to take you there:  Surgery - HLHS - CHOP.

Comments

  1. Hope's BlogFebruary 9, 2010 at 7:52 AM

    That video is great. As a mom of baby with HLHS it really helped me understand a lot more. Thank you for sharing!

    ReplyDelete

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