14 Sep Surgery Summary
Keegan was in surgery for almost 10 hours yesterday. The blog updates seem to be back and forth because we were updating as we got tiny snippets of info from the operating room. After they finished the repair of the ventrical septal defect and pulmonary valve, they took him off the bypass machine and ran echos and tests to see how he was doing. Those tests led them to put him back on the bypass machine to fix the tricuspid valve that was nicked by a suture during the first repair. Still, Keegan’s oxygen saturation levels coming from the lungs were not satisfactory, and the doctors still do not know why. All four cardiothoracic surgeons were present during Keegan’s surgery and decided to place him on an ECMO machine to see what will happen next. His heart has good contractility and for the most part is working well. There is some leakage between some of the patches, but that is considered normal for now.The ECMO is a heart and lung bypass machine that is breathing, pumping blood, and oxygenating blood for Keegan. It is good because he is stable but is also very intense. He will be watched over the next few days extremely closely. It could be that Keegan’s lungs are just too young and small to be functioning at full capacity. He had a good night overall, and we will update you more after we speak with the doctors this morning.