Kaleb's 2010 heart update

Today we learned that Kaleb’s body this past year is growing at a pace that allows his heart valve to keep up. His numbers fluctuate as he grows. If he goes through a growth spurt the numbers can rise. Last year his number was 25 (40 is when we begin talking surgery) and today we found out it is sitting at 16!! We get to wait out another year!! Here is the medical info about Kaleb's condition:

"Aortic Stenosis refers to a condition that causes obstruction to blood flow between the left ventricle and the aorta. There are a variety of causes, including muscular obstruction below the aortic valve, obstruction at the valve itself, or aortic narrowing immediately above the valve.

The most common form of aortic stenosis is obstruction at the valve itself, referred to as aortic valvar stenosis, which is the subject of this section.

The normal aortic valve consists of three thin and pliable valve leaflets. When the left ventricle ejects blood into the aorta, normal aortic valve leaflets spread apart easily and cause no obstruction to outflow of the blood from the heart.

Aortic stenosis occurs when abnormalities of the aortic valve lead to narrowing and obstruction between the left ventricle and the aorta.

The most common abnormality occurs when the aortic valve has only two (instead of three) leaflets. This is called a bicuspid aortic valve (or BAV). Often the valve leaflets are thickened and less pliable than normal, and the lines of separation between them (or "commissures") are fused together to a variable degree. When the aortic valve does not open freely, the left ventricle must work harder to eject blood into the aorta.

To compensate for this additional workload, the muscle of the left ventricle (the myocardium) gradually thickens to provide additional strength to left ventricular ejection. The increased left ventricular muscle, also known as hypertrophy, is rarely a problem itself. Instead, hypertrophy is an indication of significant valve obstruction.

When the aortic valve is severely obstructed, the left ventricular muscle may not be able to compensate satisfactorily. In these very severe, but fortunately rare, instances the left ventricle may fail to pump blood effectively and the patient may develop cardiac failure. If this occurs it is almost always in a newborn infant with very severe valve obstruction. Heart failure rarely occurs later in childhood."

http://www.cincinnatichildrens.org/health/heart-encyclopedia/anomalies/avs.htm

As always, the cardiologist always goes into detail about what could happen later on. Today he was telling me about 2 different kinds of valve replacements. One type would use the pulmonary valve for the aortic valve which means he would have 2 valve replacements but it’s the preferred method because then the pulmonary valve would grow with the body. I’m not sure what they would use for the pulmonary replacement, though. So much info to digest at times! This procedure can only be done up until 10 years of age. Riley Hospital is known as the best in the country for doing this procedure. The other option is a mechanical valve and that would require blood thinners the rest of his life. However, he did conclude with, “I hope we don’t have to do either…” At the same time I’m praying, “Lord, I pray we never have to make this decision….”

So, specifically, you can pray that Kaleb will never have to have open heart surgery. If we get to that point, there will be lots of life changes for him and us. We would love to have a full and complete recovery but we are happy to keep doing what we are doing so that he can still live a normal life.