Wes was born with three major heart defects that in their own way worked together to keep him going for 13 months before it was finally time for surgery. If any one of the three defects were not present at birth he would have needed surgery immediately before the final repair could be made later.

Wes had a large hole (VSD) between his ventricles (black circle on the picture). He also had a narrowing of the pulmonary artery at the valve and the main defect was that his ventricles were reversed. This meant the ‘stronger’ ventricle that normally pumps to the body was pumping to the lungs and the ventricle that normally pumps to the lungs was pumping to the body. If this was left as-is the ventricle pumping to the body would eventually wear out because it was not designed to work that hard. His lungs never received too much blood because of the narrowed pulmonary artery valve and his body received adequate blood flow because the VSD allowed the pressure from both ventricles to send blood out.

Surgery became necessary when his blood oxygen level dropped into the mid-eighties (normal is 100%) due to his growth and continued pulmonary obstruction in combination with the VSD.

Dr. Emani performed what is a called a double switch using a Nikaidoh procedure. They closed the VSD, relatively minor compared to everything else that had to be done. They then removed the section of narrowed pulmonary artery with its bad valve and installed a new section and valve from a donor and connected it to the correct ventricle. He then moved the aorta and connected it to the spot where the pulmonary artery used to be so the ventricles could now pump to where they were supposed to. He then had to create a series of baffles and conduits to get the blood to through the atria to the correct ventricles (hence the ‘double’ switch). It was a massive reworking of the entire heart but it now functions as it should and is performing beautifully. At some point the donor conduit/valve will have to be up-sized as the heart grows but that procedure can be done through a catheter and is not considered major surgery.

The main electrical system of Wes’s heart was very close to where the aorta was detached for relocation so Dr. Emani warned us that the conductivity may be interrupted. If the conductivity did not return they would have to install a pacemaker, but so far that does not seem to be necessary.

As you can see from my brief overview of the procedure, it was very a complex situation but ultimately a complete success. Thank you all for your continued support and well wishes.