Surgery Update: 5:00pm

Just spoke with one of the cardiac nurses who said that Evie is doing very well. They've already completed the unifocalization portion of the surgery (that involved detaching one of her remaining MAPCAs and connecting it to the shunts they put in last year) and they're getting ready to attach the Sano shunt to her pulmonary artery.

She has not been connected to the heart and lung machine yet because they haven't needed to stop her heart yet. However, her heart will have to be stopped to attach the Sano shunt and valve to her heart.

Here's a pretty good picture of what the completed work will look like. The white tube on the right, identified in the picture as a "RV-PA PTFE Shunt," is what they're attaching to Evie. We also learned that the conduit tube will not be artificial gortex, but is living tissue: it's part of the pulmonary artery of the donor baby, which has a valve inside it.

We're relieved that living tissue is used so that hopefully it will grow with Evie, and not have to be replaced with a bigger shunt in the future as she grows older. God bless the soul of this donor baby and his or her family, wherever they are, so that Evie can live.

While I've been Googling in the waiting room here, we stumbled upon several pediatric heart surgeries that are online. This one is a good example of what is happening to Evie right now. Amazing.

The cardiac nurse will update us again around 6:30pm.