Welcome to Emmy's CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place about her surgery on April 17th. We appreciate your support and words of encouragement.
Shortly after Emmy was born in July of 2007 she was diagnosed with a subaortic ventricular septal defect and tetralogy of fallot and had surgery to repair these defects in December 2007. At her 3 year appointment testing revealed that she had a regurgitating tricuspid valve. We have been monitoring this for the past 5 years. After her testing in March the surgeon and cardiologist decided now was the best time to repair the valve. The surgery is scheduled for 4/17 at 7:30 am and should last 4-5 hours.
Fortunately they can repair the valve and it does not require replacement, unfortunately Emmy has to have another 4-5 hour open heart surgery. After surgery Emmy will be at Children's for 5 days then resting at home for another week or two before she can return to school.
While this has been hard for Melissa and myself, Emmy has had a positive outlook. For those that know Emmy well, it should be no surprise that she is looking forward to being the center of attention. Her doctor told her that during her stay in the hospital that a phone would be by her bed and she could pick it up and order anything she wanted at any time and that candy stripers would be there to play games with her, Emmy asked if she "could check in a few days earlier".
http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/More/HeartValveProblemsandDisease/Problem-Tricuspid-Valve-Regurgitation_UCM_450617_Article.jsp#.WOEKQRLys00 
