Parker has undergone three open-heart surgeries

 in the first 18 months of life.

    The first, called the Norwood I Procedure, was performed  Tuesday, July 15 by Dr. Henry Walters at Childrens Hospital of Michigan.  The surgery, which took approximately 6 hours, involved lowering his body temperature to 18 degrees Celsius and placing him on a heart-lung bypass machine for about 2 1/2 hours.  This life-saving surgery used donor tissue from a 33-year-old woman to expand the aorta.  The expanded aorta was then connected directly to the lower right chamber of the heart.  The second part of that first surgery, on Thursday, July 17, completed the Norwood procedure by closing the chest cavity. Although the entire process took nearly 2 hours, the actual time required to close the chest was about 30 minutes, according to Dr. Walters.  A metal alloy is used to reconnect the sternum. 

    The second surgery was performed on Monday, December 29.  A vein known as the superior vena cava, which transports oxygen-poor blood from the upper body, was connected to the pulmonary artery.  The process began at 7:15 in the morning and was completed at 3:30 p.m.  During the surgery, the circulatory arrest time was 32 minutes and the aortic clamp time was 33 minutes.  He was on the heart-lung bypass for 158 minutes.

The third surgery, a fenestrated fontan, took place on January 12, 2005. 

Use the web links below for more information about treating HLHS: