Posted by Jack Drum on February 28, 2002 at 21:17:22:
Here is the latest I got from Anne, Courtney's mother. She gives a little more of Courtney's medical history. Its not necessayr to say anything else.
My daughter Courtney is 19 and was born with Tricuspid Atresia, Transposition
of the Great Arteries, Pulmonary Stenosis, ASD and a VSD. She had a BT shunt
at 2yrs old, Fontan at 6yrs old, mitral valve replacement at 12 yrs old
complicated by 2 brain hemorrhages and a stroke, and just recently on Jan 3rd
she had a Fontan revision and an arrhythmia surgery called a Maze to stop her
reoccurring arrhythmias. She is definitely the arrhythmia queen. In the
year 2001 she was cardioverted for Afib and Atrial flutter 30 times. She had
a pacemaker implanted in Dec 200 and still the arrhythmias persisted. She
had 2 radiofrequency catheter ablations last March where they ablated 8
pathways in all. Still the arrhythmias persisted. She has been on every
antiarrhythmic there is and some that weren't yet FDA approved. And still
they persisted. Finally we decided to go for the risky surgery she had this
past Jan. It was a twelve hour surgery and they did many things during the
surgery. She was at Mayo for nearly 5 weeks. She is now 7 weeks post-op.
She also has poor left ventricular function form the 2 yrs of arrhythmias and
the antiarrhythmic medications. One day she will need a transplant.Now for an update. We went to see her card at RUSH yesterday. She had an
echo which showed that her function is still not real good but definitely no
worse than before surgery It was in the 45% range. The card went up on the
Captopril which is an after load reduction medication or Ace inhibitor. It
helps the heart not to have to work so hard. Courtney is still having fluid
retention problems and was bummed about that. Her card explained she is only
7 weeks psot-op and needs to relax and give herself time to recover. She
also explained to her that she got a Bidirectional Glen Shunt along with a
new Fontan and that the Superior Vena Cava was used to connect the shunt and
it feeds the vessels to the head. She said when the pulmonary arteries and
vena cava get used to the new pressures than her swelling in her face and
neck will go down. She just needs to give it time. She also said that her
liver is still enlarged and congested but it too will go down in time as she
recovers. The Inferior Vena Cava was also used in the new connection and
that leads to the lower body explaining her abdominal swelling. She went up
on her lasix as well. Over all she felt that she was doing good for only 7
weeks post-op. We went to pacemaker clinic also. They tested her atrial
leads and they still have not kicked in. At this point they don't feel they
will. She had tons and tons of PAC's (premature atrial contractions)
recorded which was good news. Courtney can feel all the extra beats and we
were afraid they were ventricular beats PVC's, which would have been much
worse. Her doctor says that at this point they won't treat the Pac's unless
they get to the point where they bother her. She gets about 4 or 5 in a
minute, but all the time. She says she can live with it compared to what she
was dealing with before. So it seems that the Maze did cure her arrhythmias!
She is still on no antiarrhythmics!! Unbelievable considering how difficult
she was to control! I can't say enough about the Maze surgery! Soon I think
she will start to feel better and feel like doing more. She is doing great
considering she still has CHF. We are truly blessed!!
- Re: Update on Courtney Kidd. Carl Plaskett 21:54:57 2/28/2002 (1)
- Re: Update on Courtney Kidd. rob hamill 10:21:51 3/01/2002 (0)