Elyse Lane was 20-weeks pregnant when she learned that her unborn son had a rare and severe heart defect. Her baby was missing his pulmonary valve and his pulmonary artery was 10 times the normal size.
The outlook was bleak. The baby's enlarged artery hampered his blood and oxygen flow, a condition called tetralogy of Fallot, and his missing pulmonary valve made the defect worse.
Fortunately, Lane and her husband, Andy Lane, a former Major League Baseball coach with the Chicago Cubs, were referred to Frank Hanley, MD, a cardiothoracic surgeon at Stanford Children's Health. Hanley had experience with this kind of heart defect and knew how to perform the delicate surgery needed to repair their baby's heart.
The Lanes recount the story of their son's lifesaving surgery on the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital blog:
When he was just five days old, Jackson underwent a 13-hour operation that would save his life. Hanley and his team did a complex overhaul of Jackson’s heart: they inserted a pulmonary valve, reduced the size of Jackson’s right pulmonary artery, and enlarged his small, disconnected, left pulmonary artery. Hanley also used an innovative and intricate procedure known as the LeCompte maneuver, which altered the pathway of Jackson’s right and left pulmonary arteries from the back of the heart and aorta to the front. This gave his severely compromised bronchial tubes room to grow and remodel after surgery was over.
As the story explains, Jackson's heart will need some maintenance in the future, but he should live a normal and long life.
“He can now do anything he wants in life,” said Elyse Lane in in the blog piece. “He’s already made it through the biggest challenge.”
Previously: Patient is "living to live instead of living to survive," thanks to heart repair surgery, A very special small package: Three-pound baby receives pacemaker, Advancing heart surgery for the most fragile babies, and Little hearts, big tools
Photo courtesy of Lucile Packard Children's Hospital
