Team Travis: Update on Baby Travis

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Update on Baby Travis

Nicole and I are trying to figure out the best course of action for our Baby Travis. We decided to research San Diego Children's Hospital because of several reasons. One is the proximity to all of our family. Our support system will be very important through this whole journey. Second, we like that Travis will be staying at San Diego Children's Hospital the entire time of his stay. He will not be transferred back to Kaiser after two weeks, he will be kept at Childrens until he is ready to go home. This seems to me the best course of action, because Childrens specializes in babies with special needs. We also just get a better feel for the people at Children's San Diego and their willingness to help us through the process.

The first step in possibly making the transition to San Diego was our meeting with the Director of Cardiac Surgery Dr. Lamberti. We went down to meet with him this past Monday and he is an incredible surgeon who actually performed heart surgery on my brother Ryan 25 years ago. Nicole and I liked what he had to say and his willingness to answer all of our questions. After meeting with him, we were convinced that he would be the surgeon that would perform the first part of Travis' surgery. Unfortunately, he might not be around when we need him to perform the surgery. He works at the Children's Hospital in Hawaii for some of the months of the year and this could be a problem. This throws a little monkey wrench into our plans. We just have not figured out what we want to do.

We have several appointments coming up in San Diego the next 2 weeks. We have another EKG on Thursday with Dr. Levy of Kaiser San Diego. We also have an appointment with a Perinatalogist next Tuesday to discuss birth plans and other stuff. On that day we will also meet with Heart Surgeon Peter Pastuszko of Children's Hospital of San Diego who is Dr. Lamberti's associate. Hopefully by next week we will have a vision of both options for baby Travis.

Nicole and I our really having a difficult time deciding between Children's Hospital in Los Angeles or San Diego.

How do you make such a tough decision with so many unknowns?

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Travis Gary DiCarlo

Travis Gary DiCarlo, first son of Roger and Nicole DiCarlo, was born at San Diego Kaiser Hospital, October 23, 2009 with a Congenital Heart Defect known as Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, or HLHS. The short explanation is that Travis was born with only half of a heart. In order for him to live, a series of three operations were planned.

Due to an infection, Travis had to have an additional open heart surgery to insert pulmonary artery bands on October 29, 2009. He had his Norwood Surgery on November 21, 2009. He was sent home on December 14, 2009 from Rady's Children Hospital of San Diego after spending his first 52 nights of life in the hospital.

After being home for several months, Travis was due to for his next surgery in the plan, the Glenn procedure. But the life of a cardiac kid can change in an instant and life doesn't always go as planned. Due to the anatomy of his heart and some rhythm issues, Travis had what the surgeons called Norwood part 2. They replaced his Sano Shunt with a bigger one, enlarged his pulmonary arteries and installed a pacemaker. This surgery was performed on May 3, 2010. Travis went home on May 17th, 2010.

Around Travis' first birthday in October his cardiologist detected some narrowing in his pulmonary artery and ordered a heart cath. The heart cath showed extensive narrowing in his aorta and his pulmonary artery. On February 17, 2011 Travis had his 4th open heart surgery. He was doing well with recovery until he suddenly went into cardiac arrest on Friday (2/18). After two hours of CPR Travis was placed on ECMO (a heart/lung bypass). Although his heart did begin to beat again on its own, his brain was damaged during the whole ordeal and he lost all brain function. We had to say goodbye to our beautiful boy on Saturday, February 19th. We miss our boy terribly.....