February 26, 2024 – Update 2

David went back to the OR at 3:30. His surgeon speculated that it could take an hour if David was able to come off of ECMO and needed nothing else, or else 3-4 hours if he needed the central shunt. I eventually left Adam at the hospital around 9:30 because I had a few things I needed to do at home before tomorrow, and we still had no update. We’d been watching hourly lab results come in for David and just kept speculating what might be happening with him, but honestly had no clue. Well, around 10, the surgeon arrived to go over what had been happening since 3:30 and called me so I could try to listen in. 

David is one of a kind. Earlier in the day, when he explained the central shunt to us, he said that typically in a newborn, he would use a 3.5mm shunt. However, David clearly has been asking for more blood flow to his lungs, so he was thinking a 4mm shunt would be sufficient. Well, it turns out David is causing them to rewrite all of their equations. He ended up placing a 5mm shunt that has been banded down to 4.75-4.5mm because that is what David needs to properly balance the blood flow to his body and to his lungs. This is not quite ideal, because the banded shunt is known to cause clots, so David will need to be on blood thinners. He also has a little heart arrhythmia at the moment, but is being medicated for it – I believe this was a known risk heading into any of his heart surgeries, but something that can be managed. David is currently off ECMO again. Hopefully he can maintain everything (I guess tomorrow I may ask about when his chest gets closed up, if we run the risk that happened when it was attempted last time). It was another long day, but his surgeon seemed pleased and said that we are now taking a step in the right direction.