Update on Nathan's Progress

Nathan had surgery on Wednesday July 15th.  He came through the surgery wonderfully and was doing well after.  We ran into a set back when Nathan's heart did not return to beating at a normal rhythm, which is called sinus rhythm.  Instead Nathan was and still in experiencing heart block.

Heart block after surgery can usually correct itself within 7-10 days after surgery.  After the waiting period if the heart does not return to normal our surgeon will install an internal pacemaker.  Nathan's heart is showing signs of wanting to return normal but has not fully recovered and in fact is beating at a much slower rate as well.  Because of this Nathan still has pace wires running from his heart through his chest in case we need to attach an external pacemaker.

The heart block and slowed rate do not affect Nathan like you would think and he is (almost) as active as ever.  We are having some other complications not related to the direct surgery, like constipation, vomiting, and lack of eating and drinking which we are handling now but other then that we are just in the waiting game.

So here is the plan.  The surgeon has Nathan in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (CICU) observing him with a one on one nurse daily.  His plan was to wait for at least the 7 days to let the heart try to fix itself.  In speaking with him today we discussed waiting for the total 10 days.  So if we go with 7 days that would put surgery on Wednesday then a 24 hour recovery and most likely released by Friday A.M.  If we wait the 10 days that would put us to Saturday, and the probably won't do surgery on a Saturday, so that would probably be scheduled Monday with the 24 hours after that puts us returning home next Wednesday morning.  For now though the surgeon is just taking it day by day so nothing is setup yet.

The good thing about waiting is that we can get our consults done.  Some of you may know that Nathan sees several specialist.  Once we are done here at the hospital we have a hearing test and audiology appointment scheduled and soon to follow an Occupational Therapy evaluation and Speech Therapy evaluation.  Since we are here and just waiting they informed me that I could get this all done here!!!!! (Yes Deb I know you told me first)  That is so great!

Ok bottom line or summary if that's how you would like to put it.  Nathan had surgery on the 15th repairing a VSD and removing sub aortic membrane.  He has been in heart block and slowed rate since the surgery.  Complications of eating and drinking, constipation, and vomiting have been what we have been dealing with while we wait 7-10 days for the heart to return to it's normal sinus rhythm.  In 7-10 days it doesn't fix itself Nathan will have an internal pacemaker put in.

We are just waiting!