Speedy Recovery

Meredith's recovery is going great. For the most part she appears to be back to normal, scooting and walking around and playing with toys. Her chest incision bothers her occasionally, but not too much. We go for her 2 week check up January 4.

-Chip

Home

This morning Meredith was discharged and came home. Unfortunately, I was at a deposition and was not the one to bring her home. We have a follow-up appointment in 2 weeks. I will post again at that time, unless something major happens between now and then.

-Chip

Doing Well

Meredith continues to recover a brisk pace. She is eating quite a bit more and had her first major bowel movement. Although she has been cleared to go to the floor when a bed opens up, there is the possibility that she will be discharged from the ICU. The Drs will do one more echo, I think this afternoon. Meredith could be released as early as tomorrow.

Obviously we are ecstatic at the rate of her recovery. We recognize God's hand in our lives and are so grateful for his blessings. Thank you again to all of you for your many prayers on Meredith's behalf.

-Chip

No More Tubes

This morning Meredith had the rest of her lines removed. They left an IV in her hand (as is their policy) but she is no longer tethered to the pumps. She nursed and also ate some cheerios. This also means that she is cleared to go to the floor as soon as a bed becomes available.

Although Meredith has been awake a lot, she has mostly just laid there with her eyes open - no facial expressions and not much movement. Last night when Stephanie and I returned from dinner (they kick us out of the ICU from 7-8 am and pm for shift change and this is when we eat) she began smiling and moving more. It was nice to see a glimpse of her bubbly personality.

-Chip

Progress and Patience

Meredith is doing very well. She has been more awake and has eaten a little bit of food. This morning they removed her chest tubes and began weaning her off one of the last meds that she will have to get off of before going to the floor. We are hoping to go to the floor tomorrow, but it will likely be Monday. The criteria for going home (as I heard it anyway) are:


1) All meds are being given orally

2) She is off the oxygen

3) She is eating and keeping her food down

So as long as she continues to improve at this rate she should be able to go home this next week.

-Chip

No More Breathing Tube :)

About 5 minutes ago Meredith's breathing tube was removed. She was not happy about it, which was good. She appears to be breathing ok on her own. Her face is still a little swollen and she cannot open her eyes very far. She also had some other tube removed that went into her heart, but I do remember its name nor its function. Meredith still has several IVs, her art line, a line into her jugular, 3 chest tubes, and temporary pacemaker leads. I am sure that I am forgetting something. My point is that while having her breathing tube removed is definite progress, she still has a ways to go.

-Chip

Day 2 Post-OP

Meredith continues to rest sedated with a breathing tube. The echo tech recently did an echo and one of the cardiologists looked at it. There did not appear to be any real change from yesterday (good or bad), so when Dr. Hawkins gets out of surgery he will take a look at it and see what he wants to do. What he might do is start weaning her off her some of her meds if she is doing well, or stay the course for another day if she has not improved enough.

-Chip

The Missing VSD

*** After I posted this for the first time Stephanie pointed out that there were numerous typos and errors. Upon review I discovered that I posted my first draft instead of the final version that I had edited. I have now edited this post and hope it is more readable. However, I reserve the right to spell or use any word however I choose in this post or any future postings. May the power of context be with you. ***

For those of you that may not have been following from the beginning, Meredith was diagnosed with having a large VSD. This is a hole between the chambers of the ventricles. Since the original diagnosis (and after leaving the hospital) Meredith has had 2 echos at Primary where the doctors never questioned the diagnosis. We sent her last echo from Primary to Cleveland for Dr. Mee to review, and he agreed with the diagnosis of a VSD. Then, we went to the Cleveland Clinic where Meredith had another echo and the diagnosis of a VSD was not questioned. I do not know how many people looked at her echo in Cleveland, but I do know that practically the whole cardiology team looked at it at Primary and they all came to the same conclusion. Then, in surgery, Dr. Hawkins discovered that there was no VSD to begin with. Don't get me wrong, not having a VSD is a good thing in that it will increase the chance that Meredith will not have a pacemaker. However my question is: How did so many people miss that?

No one is sure at this point (at least that they are willing to share), but I have 2 hypotheses - one from God the other from Man.

1) We will start with the one from God first because it is easier to explain. If you do not believe that God is a God if miracles you can skip to the next explanation if it do ya.

The explanation is that God healed the VSD through the power of faith as demonstrated by the priesthood blessings Meredith has received and the many people who have been praying and fasting and praying and pleading and praying.

2) The explanation from Man is really a guess, because even now as Puchalski (Meredith's cardiologist) went back and reviewed the previous echos he still saw what he saw and would still say that she had a VSD (were it not for the physical verification in surgery that she does not).

First, let me talk a little about the echo. You may have seen on some TV show where the doctor takes a picture of the heart and that is placed on a computer screen as a 3D model and the Dr. can then use the computer to do a virtual surgery. That may exist on some level, but that is not how an echo works, or an MRI for that matter. An echo takes a "picture" of a part of the body (the heart) from a specific angle. This picture only takes in what is in the echo wands path. Think of it as taking a stick with a camera on the end and pointing it at your heart, but the lens has tunnel vision and can only see what is exactly in front of it. The echo tech does this from many different angles to try and see certain things. When the Dr. looks at the echo he is really looking at snapshots of different parts of the heart.

Now let's talk about the "picture". While watching an echo, if you did not know what you were looking at, you might think that you were watching a black and white picture of molten lava flowing around in a pool. The tech can get some color, but it is limited to red or blue. These colors are supposed to show which way the blood is flowing. Now, to the hypothesis as to what everyone saw and thought was a VSD.

Again, the VSD is a hole in the heart between the ventricles, which are the pumps of the heart. The echo cannot actually see this hole, instead what the Dr looks for is flow between the ventricles - which they saw in Meredith's echo. Puchalski (who was completely dumbfounded) stated that the septum wall - the wall between the ventricles - may have had a little pocket in it that allowed the right ventricle blood to pass onto the left ventricle’s side of the heart, but still stay in the right ventricle. This was pure guess work on his part and only an attempt to explain what may have been the case. There is no way to prove it at this point

So there you have it. If I learn any more that would help to clarify position #2 I will surely post that. You can take a guess as to what I think happened.

-Chip

Surgery is Over

Meredith is out of surgery and has been moved to the PICU. Overall she is doing well. The plan is to keep her sedated and comfortable for the night to give her body a chance to recover from the shock of surgery. An interesting note: Meredith did not, and subsequently does not, have a VSD. We had been told by cardiologists both here and in Cleveland that she had a VSD. However, upon visual examination she did not have one. The best explanation I have been given so far is that they do not know. I have not yet spoken with our regular cardiologist, but expect to get some sort of an explanation from him.

-Chip

Surgery is a Go

We will arrive at the hospital tomorrow about 6:00 am. Meredith's surgery is set to begin about 7:30 am. I may update the blog during the day (the surgery will take all day) but will definitely post after the surgery is over and she has been moved to ICU.

-Chip

Still Healthy

As of this morning Meredith does not appear to be ill. We are going to her pre-op today where they will do a full workup to decide if she is fact healthy. If all goes well she will have surgery tomorrow.

-Chip

Getting Closer

Well we are approaching Meredith's next surgery date, Tuesday the 13th. For those of you at home who are keeping score this is her third scheduled date and we have changed playing fields from Cleveland to Salt Lake City. Meredith has recovered from her last illness and has not *yet* picked anything else up. One of our friends donated some surgical masks (Thanks Nan) which we have been requiring coughing/sniffling children to wear when they are in the vicinity. The truth is keeping Meredith healthy is hard. It is winter. and we have 6 other children, all of whom attend school and presumably interact with other germ carrying children. We use sanitizer around the house religiously, have banned virtually all visitors, and the only place Meredith goes is in the car when Stephanie has to run the kids around. The next step will have to be a plastic bubble, but that would only be fun if she could play trivial pursuit. In recognition of these difficulties for Meredith I have composed a song without music.

Meredith, shining star
Working hard, Working hard
Eat and poop and fart and laugh and play and talk and sing and
cry
Being you is very hard

Admittedly it is not a very long song, and truthfully I just composed it as I sat here and gave it very little thought. However, I think it still rings true.

We have a very busy weekend planned but if something develops, ie Meredith gets sick again, I will be sure to let you know.

-Chip

More Sickness

Meredith decided on Wednesday that she was not very interested in going back to Cleveland. She began running a fever and spent most of the night throwing up. She has now stopped throwing up, but she still has a low fever and diarrhea. Even if she were to stop having symptoms of being sick right now, she would not recover to her full strength in time for the surgery. We will not being going to Cleveland.

As a backup, we also had a date of December 13th scheduled for surgery at Primary Children's. Hopefully she will have fully recovered and not have contracted anything else by then.

-Chip