Please pray for Charlise. Charlise was born Sunday morning at 1:00 a.m. She underwent heart surgery today. She was born with only two valves in her aorta. Normally, there are three. She has transposition of the great vessels, which means that the artery that is supposed to take oxygenated blood to the heart and the artery that is supposed to take the deoxygenated blood to the lungs are switched, which means that her heart is pumping deoxygenated blood. The pulmonic valve is also too small, which greatly complicates the eventual surgical repair needed. She also has heart valve defects which at this point are helping her, as it allows the oxygenated and deoxygenated blood in her heart chambers to mix. There are 2 structures that close shortly after birth, and the surgery yesterday was an emergency procedure to keep this open and widen it, as it allows more mixing of the blood which at this point keeps her alive. The doctors are hoping that she can tolerate this for as long as possible, as the eventual surgical repair that will be needed is difficult and the larger she is the better. They won't give odds at this point, as the other heart defects complicate the matter. So the specific prayer requests are that she can tolerate this emergency fix and get enough oxygen to be able to grow further before the next surgery is needed. Also, they are giving her a medication that helps keep the "ductus arteriosus" open which also helps at this point. However, this medication is hard on her and they don't like to keep her on it. Overnight they tried to wean her off this but every time they cut down on it her saturations dropped. So another prayer request would be that she could be weaned off this medication and still maintain her oxygenation.
Please also pray for Mike and Christy (Charlise's parents) during this difficult time, as well as Charlise's sisters at home, Angel and Destiny, Angel especially as she was hysterical and sobbing about her sister.
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