Team Toddler Karson Kirchner

Hello - you may have heard team baby Karson...and today I bring you, TEAM TODDLER KARSON. Ashley & Josh...you are hands down two of the most loving, compassionate, humble people I know, who would never ask for anything - so just know we re-opened this because we all LOVE YOU and your whole family! - Paige & all

From the Kirchners:

I have used the saying "no news, is good news" before on this page when discussing Karson's situation. Well today I have finally worked up the courage to give you some news.

As you may remember, Karson was born with Hypoplastic Left Heart (HLHS) which means the left chambers of his heart, and his aorta were very small and unable to properly do their jobs. As a refresher, the left atrium usually receives blood from the lungs, passes it to the left ventricle, which then squeezes with force to send the oxygen rich blood up through the aorta and out to the body.

So at 2 days old, Karson's miracle team went to work and did some pretty crazy things such as removing the walls between heart chambers, and building him a new aorta. They also used a conduit about the size of a coffee straw during the process of the Norwood procedure to basically buy Karson some time until he could have his next surgery. After the Norwood, Karson's blood oxygen saturations would sit in the nid 70s. Normal is high 90s.

The Norwood did it's job and at 5 months we took Karson back to Denver for the Glenn. The Glenn removed the coffee straw conduit that was sending blood to his longs in favor of a new pathway.

**Sidebar about the inferior and superior vena cava. If you already know what those are and what they do, you can skip this part. If you don't, enjoy a short biology lesson from a former bio teacher.

We have 2 main veins that return blood from the body to the heart. They are called the vena cava (VC). Inferior means below/under and superior means above/over. So as you can probably guess the inferior VC brings blood from the legs and lower torso to the heart and the superior VC returns blood from the head, neck, upper torso and arms.**

So during the Glenn, Karson's superior VC was disconnected from his heart and connected directly to the arteries leading to the lungs. This allows the blood from his head and upper half to get oxygen before it mixes with blood from the lower half in heart. This procedure pushed his Oxygen saturations into the mid 80s and bought us more time but we knew we would eventually need to have a third procedure, the Fontan. They told us it would be sometime between age 2 and 4. So that meant to us....way, way, way, down the road.

But guess what? Time flies. Karson turned 2 in December and a cardiologist appointment in January lead to the discussion of the Fontan. Karson's team in Denver is full of experts who do this for a living and they feel the time is right. We could hypothetically push the procedure off but it is basically kicking the can down the road. He HAS to have it eventually. There are pros and cons to doing it now and pros and cons to waiting. After discussing it with his doctors, we feel it's better to do it now than later.

The Fontan will take his inferior VC and disconnect it from the heart, and then connect it to his lungs which will complete his new circulation. This will hopefully push his oxygen levels into the mid to upper 90s and allow him to grow and develop faster and lead a more normal life.

So I am currently writing this from the bed at the Ronald McDonald house in Denver, Colorado. We left Spearfish yesterday afternoon and dropped Kullen off with Papa and Nana Joachim's house which was very hard on mom and dad. Of course we forgot something at their house five minutes after leaving. So we ran back quick and he already had an ice cream cone . Obviously not as rough on Kullen as mom and dad.

We arrived late last night and Karson had a covid test today. He is scheduled for three procedures on Friday: an MRI, an Echo, and a cauterization. The MRI and Echo are to help the doctors see what they will be dealing with structurally. The catheterization will also provide some structural information but it will also be used to take some measurements of pressures, flow, and valve size while inside the heart. He has had a handful of caths done already but anytime anesthesia is involved with children it can become quite risky. So if you're the praying type, we appreciate those. And if you're not the praying type, we'll take any positive thoughts, vibes, or whatevers you wanna send to Karson and his doctors.

Assuming all goes well on Friday, we will spend Saturday and Sunday with Karson hiking trails in the Denver area and maybe seeing some zoo animals.

His Fontan is scheduled for Monday morning at 6 AM. It is anticipated it will take around 5 hours to complete. Then we were told to expect 7-14 days in the ICU while he recovers. Because of the complexity of the surgery and possible complications we are expecting to "stay local" for an additional 21 days after discharge so that way if something happens we are close enough to the hospital that they can intervene if necessary.

We are really hoping and praying everything works out and that we can be back in Spearfish by 5/21 (which happens to be my birthday and that would be the best gift I have ever gotten).

Wow. I just looked at how much I wrote on this post . Ashley always says I drag my stories out with too many details.

Anyway, thank you all for your love and support as we take the next step of the journey of life.

We love you all

Josh, Ashley, Kullen, Karson