Last night was the surgical conference, where all the cardiologists and surgeons sit down together with everything, the cath data, the echoes, the rhythm events, and hash out a recommendation.
The doctors came to talk with us around 11am. Their recommendation was to move forward with a heart transplant. With his complex anatomy and the repeat issues, they believed the best option is to start the transplant process now, before he worsens.
Then, about an hour later, the main doctor came back. The top cardiac surgeon, the same surgeon who did Isaac’s first surgery, hadn’t been able to attend the conference because he was in a long operation. And he was not so sure transplant was the best option. He believed there’s a path forward keeping Isaac’s own heart, and came to talk with us a few minutes later.
The way he sees it: Isaac’s heart has a great squeeze. The muscle itself is strong. The flow problems and the leaks, the narrowed conduit, the leaking patch, the leaky valve, are the likely culprits causing everything, and those are things he can repair. He wanted another day to talk with the wider team and build a real consensus, and he’ll come back to us tomorrow with a solid recommendation. If we move forward with the repair operation, it could happen as soon as early next week.
The repair would be another very big open heart operation with its own risks and its own long recovery road. And while transplant success rates are genuinely good, the body never stops trying to reject a transplanted heart, so there’s a countdown built into it. They don’t last a lifetime.
Tomorrow we should know which road they’re suggesting. Praying for wisdom.