The New Plan

I had a conversation with Dr. St. Louis, Dr. Braunlin, and Dr. Gupta today about the new plan for Lynnea. She's going to get a trach sometime early next week. They felt that doing an aortopexy would be pointless because it doesn't make sense to ventilate a lung that isn't profusing. So, no aortopexy. She'll be trached and vented for now; the hope is that eventually she will get off the ventilator, but since it will probably take her quite a while to come off from it, traching her is better than keeping the breathing tube in her mouth. After she is trached, it will also be possible to wean her off from her sedation medications so that we can go home (there's a good chance that we'll go home trached and vented). The big push is to get us home.

As far as Lynnea's cardiac future goes...Dr. St. Louis said that, if her heart function improves, it may still be possible to do a one-lung Glenn sometime in the future, and after that, possibly a one-lung Fontan, but that's a long way out. He also said that we haven't yet ruled out the possibility of a transplant. He still isn't willing to give up on her, even though her prognosis is now considerably worse than it was when we still thought there was a chance to save her left lung.