Colin's Bi - Directional Glenn Surgery - DATE SCHEDULED!

Colin next surgery has been scheduled!

Tuesday September 15 at Texas Children's Hospital here in Houston.

We are very excited and nervous, it will be so much better for his heart and his body, but will be very hard to hand him back over to the surgeons.

The second stage for children with single ventricle anomalies is called a "bi-directional Glenn." It reduces the work of the right ventricle by allowing it to pump blood only to the body, and allowing most of the blood to flow automatically from the body into the lungs. The second stage is performed when the pressure in the baby's lungs has decreased, no longer requiring the pumping action of the right ventricle to get blood into the lungs.

During the Glenn operation the large vessel that drains blood from the head and upper body back to the heart (the superior vena cava) is taken off the heart and sewn directly to the pulmonary artery. The BT shunt that was placed in his last surgery will be removed.

The Glenn operation has two major advantages. First, because the connection is a direct one between two blood vessels, rather than made of artificial matter, it has the ability to grow with the child. Second, it removes some of the work of pumping blood to the lungs from the single ventricle so that the ventricle will no longer have to pump all of the blood to the lungs in addition to all of the blood to the body, which places it at risk for early heart failure. In most cases this stage is tolerated the best of all the stages with a survival rate of 95 percent or better.

The average hospital stay is about 2 weeks. Once he has this surgery, life will be more "normal" for him. Once he heals, he can start school, be out in public, eat more at once since his heart won't be so tired. He will gain more weight since he won't be burning so many calories. The doctors tell us, he will have a normal life like every baby his age.
His final surgery won't be until he is about 3 or 4.