Hunter's Surgery

We should have an answer today when Hunter's surgery will be. They are now thinking Friday as long as he continues to be Ok and be stable. They still have not decided which surgery to do for sure yet. Since Hunter has been doing well and his left ventricle is borderline small, they want to take some extra time to decide which surgery will benefit him most. The options are a two ventricle surgery, which they have been leaning towards, where they will just fix the aorta and also an ASD, or small hole between his left and right atrium's. The other option is a single ventricle surgery where they will convert his right ventricle to do all the work of pumping blood to the lungs as well as the body. The two ventricle surgery would only require one surgery and should allow Hunter to live a normal life and life expectancy. The single ventricle surgery will require three different surgeries in phases and ultimately lead to Hunter needing a heart transplant later on in life. The first stage of this surgery makes it so oxygenated and non-oxygenated blood is mixed in the heart and pumped out to the body. They have to do this surgery in stages so the blood pressure in the lungs does not become to high, but the risk is some loss of IQ as well as not being able to do very physical activities. So Wed. morning they are having about 40 people, including surgeons, cardiologists, and the other doctors who have been caring for Hunter, get together to discuss which surgery will be best for him. We obviously want him to be able to have the two ventricle, but if he has issues, they said sometimes they can't go back and do anything else to fix it so it's really better to have a healthy single-ventricle baby instead of a sick two-ventricle baby so that's why they're waiting and discussing as much as they are.