Appointment

Today Meredith went for the first echo that she has had since she was in the hospital last August. The goal of today's appointment was to see exactly how much her heart had grown and begin planning for whatever surgery will best for her. Stephanie and I arrived early, which really worked to our advantage. We were able to get in and out in about 2 hours, which allowed me to get to work sooner and allowed Stephanie to get back to Kaysville and pick up the kids from school.

As far as the appointment itself, it went pretty good. Dr. Pulchalski said that her right ventricle has grown and that she looks to be a good candidate for the double switch operation. This will give her the best chance to lead a "normal" life. They will do another echo and possibly an MRI before making a final decision - this will happen in about 4 months with surgery happening close to her one-year birthday.

I looked for a good description of the double switch operation and came away wanting. The best I found (in my admittedly brief search) was the following description from the British Heart Foundation :

In this operation, the left ventricle is tunnelled to the aorta through the septal defect, a conduit (tube) is placed between the right ventricle and the pulmonary artery and an atrial 'switch' is performed.