Pam's Email Update About Luke

Hello everyone! Yesterday was Luke's appointment with the cardiologist. The doctor basically just gave us more detail to what we already knew. He said that one of the 4 main arteries (the one that supplies blood to the right arm) that comes off of the aorta is in the wrong place on Luke. 1-2% of the population has this genetic defect but only 5% of those that have the defect need to have corrective surgery. Luke is one of those that needs to have it corrected in order to eat solid food. So they will be removing the artery that is in the wrong place. They don't need to relocate it because little babies like Luke will just adapt to the missing artery and the other vessels in that area will eventually become larger to get the amount of blood necessary to the arm to keep it healthy. He shouldn't have any deficits in that arm at all except for the lack of a brachial pulse since the artery will no longer be there. The cardiac surgeon that will be doing the surgery is Dr. Woods and it will be done in Tacoma at Mary Bridge. The surgery will be a very straight forward one with little risk of complications. The surgeon will go in in one of 3 ways. Their first choice is to make 2 or 3 small incisions and use a scope to do the surgery. The other options are to either cut down the front of his chest (which leaves a nasty scar) or to go between the ribs and spread them (which is very painful for recovery). We will meet with the surgeon and his team on March 27th and they will let us know what their plan is at that time. His surgery is scheduled for Thursday April 5th at 8 am. We are excited to get this taken care of and get on with life but at the same time we know that it will be hard to watch him go through this and it will bring back tough memories of when he was a newborn in the NICU. We are thankful to everyone for your prayers, cards, and all the support that you have given us. I know that Luke is in the Lord's hands and I take great comfort in knowing that what ever happens in his life the Lord will never leave his side. Thank you all again!