Andrew Ibarra Andrew2022surgery

My name is Andrew Joseph Ibarra I was born on 11/03/2005. I was born with a congenital heart defect called Truncus Arteriosus Type 2. I was also born with VSD and Pulmonary Stenosis. I had my 1st open heart surgery just at 5 weeks old at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston Tx by Dr. Fraser.  My Contegra conduit started calcifying at the age of 2 years old due to it begin foreign  to my body. Dr Shaffer at pediatric cardiologist  attempt to repair my contegra conduit July 21, 2008 by using a Heart Cath.  This attempt would have prolong another open heart surgery, but it was not success since it was calcified like a rock.

My 2nd open heart surgery was  on June 8, 2009 to repair my Calcified Contegra and to repair my right pulmonary artery due to scar tissue. Dr. Fraser replaced the old conduit with a new contegra conduit which has a  span of 18mm (almost adult size).  This has allow me not to have open heart surgery for sometime. 

The time has come for my 3rd Open heart surgery on June 1, 2017. It is time  to replace my  Contegra pulmonary valve conduit which has calcified again and is causing too much pressure in my heart. I am almost to the point of out growing it as well, so they will try to put an adult size one.  There are three choice of conduit that Dr. Fraser will try to best fit according to size to space in my body. We have beat all odds because contegra conduit should only last 5 years and mine has lasted 8 years.

I am now in July 2019 it's two years after my third open heat surgery. The First Year I was doing great with no problems with his new pulmonary heart valve 23mm that was replace summer 2017. As time went on I had my second visit of the first year with my cardiologist  Dr. Shaffer. He started to notice that the new pulmonary heart valve was starting to calcify again. This is an ongoing problem with any bovine or contegra valve replacement, since it is foreign to body it gets attracted and becomes calcified. Before we do another open heart surgery to replace it, the team of doctors recommend trying alleviate the pressure by replacing the pulmonary valve.  I am scheduled for transcatheter pulmonary valve replacement (TPVR) using the Edwards SAPIEN S3 valve on 7/22/19 at 8:45 AM at Dell Children hospital in Austin. Wish me good health.


Fast forward to April 2022 Andrew had his cardiologist visit with Dr. Shaffer and the outcome was not so great. We learned that Andrew had severely calcified his valve on the echocardiogram. Next was to undergo several tests in May like a two-hour MRI test to see if we could wait another year. After we got the results late May, it showed severe calcification, but could we repair it with a valve stent in the Cath lab?  We scheduled an appointment with his vascular surgeon Dr. Fraser to see what the best options for Andrew were. Dr. Fraser has been Andrew’s surgeon since his first surgery at 5th weeks old.  After Dr. Shaffer and Dr. Holt analyzed all the data for months and looked at all the percentages of success rate, which were between 25% to 37% it was too high of a risk to undergo the Cath lab. If it failed it would be an emergency operation that day, since we would severely mess up the valve trying to repair it. As a team with Andrew’s approval, we decided to go ahead with another open-heart surgery since it was still going to be needed soon. This is one of the hardest decisions a 16 year old has to make, not like going to the convenience store by yourself with only a permit.  (KUBRA go-live team Andrew says thank you)! 

 We are scheduled for Aug 2 pre-op clearance and Aug 30, 2022 is Open-heart Surgery. Please keep Andrew in your prayers.