Bobby's Surgery Update

Bobby is fine - resting in the ICU and battling to have his breathing tube removed. Hopefully that will happen later today.

However, Bobby's heart is still not fixed. After opening him up and performing some additional tests, the doctors decided that his left ventricle is to small for the planned repair. They instead put a band around Bobby's pulmonary artery. The band lessens the symptoms of congestive heart failure and buys time for Plan B to be figured out.

But here's where it gets tricky. Our surgeon told us we would wait 6-9 months in the hopes that the ventricle would grow. At that point, we'd either decide to do the 2-ventricle repair or move to our second option - rerouting his blood flow so that blood from his body bypasses the heart and flows directly to the lungs.

Our cardiologist, the same heart doctor Bobby regularly sees, told us that the 2 ventricle repair was unlikely, because of the left ventricle and because he has a problem with his mitral valve. With the 2 ventricle repair off the table, we'd only wait 6-8 weeks for the second kind of surgery.

We're not happy. Obviously, we're not happy that Bobby still has a bum heart. We have no idea what to do in terms of Bobby's day care - do we come up with a 6 week or 6 month plan? We wonder how long we can hold off on his physical and developmental therapy and still hope that he can catch up. And we're simply angry that we're being told very different stories by our doctors. Our cardiologist promised to resolve this tomorrow so now we're in a holding pattern, waiting with Bobby, trying to feed him only the most positive energy.

The good news? Bobby is recovering nicely so far. He has an incision down the middle of his chest and a broken sternum. He'll hopefully be home by the weekend.

Better news? While not a fix, the pulmonary band will make Bobby feel better while we decide what comes next.

The best news? We still have options. While this was a very disappointing bump in the road, it's not the end of the world. The next surgery will come and we will have a healthier Bobby. It's just not today.