If I could give Dylan my heart, I would - literally. Jeremy says I'm not allowed to because Dylan needs his mommy alive not dead. So instead, we're gearing up for surgery. It's not actual heart surgery but surgery to fix his coarctation. The aorta comes off the heart and some goes up, one part goes down. In the part that goes down there's a kink. This is the coarc.
A few weeks ago Dylan went to Dartmouth to see Dr. Flanagan for his cardiology checkup. Dr. F determined that 1) Dylan is too wiggly and needed to be sedated for a better Echocardiogram (thus another appointment was scheduled for the following week) and 2) he needed surgery to fix the coarc. The following week we went back and held Dylan's hands and told him we loved him as he cried and fought the anesthesia. Then we were with him while he woke up and demanded food as he hadn't been allowed to eat for the past 7 hours. In between they got the better picture which held good news, or the best we could hope for given the situation. And that is...
The coarc is small. This means they can do a simpler surgery that does not involve grafts or fake parts or any of that. They merely clamp the aorta on either side of the coarc, cut it out and sew the two remaining ends together. It is, of course, a lot more complicated than that in actuality, but that's the easiest explanation I've got.
As with any surgery there are risks involved. I don't know all of them yet and of course my mind goes to the worst, thus me offering Dylan my heart. Jeremy did point out it might be just a little too big for him anyways.
But I don't want to think about the risks. I'm focusing on the fact that I asked Dr F if in five years Dylan would be running and jumping and kicking a soccer ball around and Dr F said yes. And I asked if we could still travel soon after the surgery (soon is relative... in November). Dr F said "go for it." Based on that I have no reason to believe we won't be doing those things and that's what I need to focus on. Can you tell this post is really a pep-talk for me?
The surgery is next week at Boston's Children's Hospital. It's supposed to be the best so naturally I have high expectations. Dr F is not doing the surgery, and in his words, we wouldn't want him to as it's not his specialty. Fair enough. And if the question comes up... Dylan still has aortic valve stenosis. This will not be fixed at this time. Right now the difference between the valves is 20, which is what they aim for as a result when they do need to fix it, so basically Dylan's as good as he's going to get there, at least for the time being.
Dylan is our little lion and he roars to be brave. Or at least that's what I'm teaching him to do. But he'll also have a lot of family around to be brave for him - Mom and Dad, of course, and Grammy and Nana; we'll all be there while he's in surgery next week. And even though we all love him with all our hearts, he can still have mine if he needs it. ROAR.
