Following a successful heart surgery Monday, July 24, Avery Henderson was intubated and put back on a ventilator Aug. 2, a day after turning 4 months old.
The baby’s aunt and family spokesperson, Lindsey Disselbrett, said if Avery, who is at Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in Portland, further struggles to breathe he could receive a tracheostomy, a surgical hole in the neck through which a tube is placed for breathing.
“If so, he would have to have it until he was much older because it can’t be closed when children are small due to the risk of scar tissue blocking the airway,” Disselbrett said.
With the July 24 surgery, she said, doctors repaired a patent ductus arteriosus. PDA holes usually close in babies after birth, but Avery’s did not, causing blood to flow into his lungs.
She added that doctors also put a band around the baby’s pulmonary artery to reduce excess blood flow into his lungs, which compounded his difficult breathing.
“So he will have to have more surgeries down the road,” Disselbrett said. “This was the surgery that was supposed to buy Avery some time to get bigger and stronger before they can do his other surgeries. His body is trying to adjust to this new way of blood flow to his lungs and still be able to get all that blood flow out to his body. So he still isn’t out of the woods.’
Avery was born April 1 with congenital Holt-Oram Syndrome and requires surgeries to fix holes in his heart. Disselbrett said doctors hope they don’t have to perform another heart surgery on Henderson until he’s at least a year old. He has a hole between his two atria and many holes in his ventricular septum, which separates the heart’s ventricles.
“Doctors hope the small ones will close on their own, but the bigger ones will require surgery,” she said. “He has to be big enough so that he can tolerate going onto the heart bypass machine, and his little heart needs to be big so they can go in there and put patches over those holes. As he grows, the patches won’t grow, so if we can wait a little longer the better.”
Disselbrett said despite the success of the first surgery, Avery still experiences episodes in which his oxygen levels drop.
“It’s a combination of his body learning how to put this blood flow back out with the reduced amount of blood flow going to his lungs,” she said. “And he has those holes in his heart that cause reduced blood flow for him just as his baseline, so his oxygen levels get really low and he kind of turns purple and there are these really scary moments.”
But she said those episodes are occurring less frequently and he’s recovering faster as his body adjusts. She added that doctors took Henderson off the ventilator July 28 because he was breathing on his own with assistance from a bilevel positive airway pressure machine, or BiPAP. However, doctors re-intubated him Aug. 2 and placed him back on the ventilator.
Intubation is where a tube is inserted through a person’s mouth or nose, then down into his or her trachea. The tube keeps the trachea open to allow air through.
Disselbrett said despite being reintubated and put back on the ventilator, Avery is requiring less medication and recovering more on his own after his oxygen levels drop. “He’s waking up more and looking around more and being more responsive previous to surgery,” she added
She said Avery’s mother, Nichole Maahs, and father, Jon Henderson, are appreciative of the support the family has received.
“The outpouring has been great,” she said. “I’ve had people as far as Southern California and Idaho and Montana who are following this story and sending messages and words of encouragement. It’s really been fantastic. We’re still just overwhelmed by the outpouring of support. We are truly thankful and humbled.”
A GoFundMe account has been established at https://www.gofundme.com/f/baby-avery-and-his-family. Drisselbrett also said bracelets are being sold at Pizza Hut, Fresh Image Salon, Hermiston Drug and Zila’s Salon in Hermiston to help offset medical expenses.
Avery will be in my prayers every night. GOD bless your family.
Our thoughts and prayers are with him and the family. Babies are more resilient than we think speaking from experience here.