Friday, April 15th (Day# 1 of the mission)

After a wonderful evening celebration last evening at the Dead Sea with our many friends from Rotary CLub Amman and a good night’s sleep, we are ready to go!!
First patient this morning is a 16 year old girl from Basra, Iraq, Zainab with an ASD (hole between the upper chambers of her heart). We have our medical team colleagues from Al-Khalidi Hospital here working on their usual day off, but we are already operating by 9:00 am.

She does well, hole is closed and back to ICU in stable condition by 11:00 am.

Second patient for the day is an 11 month old baby boy, Matti, from Mozul, Iraq who has a PDA and coarctation ( narrowing of aorta) and a VSD.

We are going to ligate the PDA (blood vessel you are born with that didn’t close) and repair the aorta. We may close the VSD at a later date or hopefully will continue to get smaller with time and may close on its own or need to be addressed in the future.
The aorta is repaired through the side of the chest . He does well and is in ICU by 2:00.

One of out favorite patients, Nour, a 7 year old girl from Syria, who we operated on twice in the past, first in 2009 and then again last year, is here today for her 3rd operation during is mission. She has complex heart disease, pulmonary atresia and VSD, we opened up her lung artery last year to promote growth of her very small lung arteries, and then he to close her VSD this time as well as give her a new artificial pulmonary valve. She is having a cardiac catheterization today to assess her readiness for surgery, which we have scheduled for tomorrow. When we first met her two years ao, she was quite blue, saturations 60% and so small.
Two years later, she has grown, goes to school, is beautiful and saturations were 93% today when we first saw her!! She ALWAYS comes with a smile built on her face!

Dr. Mark and Nour

Nour’s cath showed large blood vessels from another source supplying her lung vessels, ones she doesn’t need and actually may prevent her small lung arteries from growing. Dr. Kal puts coils in her right sided collateral vessels, we are unable to reach the left sided collaterals. She recovers fine after the cath and we are deciding what the next step is for Nour at this time. Her lung arteries are still not the size we would like to do her full surgical repair.

We ended the first day with a wonderful dinner at the home of the Rotary Club president Jai’ed and his wife Tania. The food and hospitality were amazing, as always and the perfect end to a successful first day!

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