Sean: Medical Overview
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Sean: Medical Overview |
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Sean’s heart has all the
right pieces, but they’re not put together properly. The aorta and
pulmonary artery both lead out from the same ventricle (called
double outlet right
ventricle or DORV). The pulmonary artery is mostly blocked at the
point that it connects to the heart (called
pulmonary stenosis).
There are holes in the septal wall of the heart (called
atrial and
ventricular septal defects
or ASD/VSD). His atria are switched so that the right atrium aligns with
the left ventricle & the left atrium aligns with the right ventricle
(called
atrioventricular discordance). There are other anomalies such as the
inferior vena cava (IVC) connecting to the superior vena cava (SVC)
instead of the right atrium, but these are relatively minor. Oh, did I mention that Sean’s internal organs are all reversed (i.e., his heart, stomach, etc are on the right)? This is called Situs Inversus Totalis (with dextrocardia) and fortunately usually doesn’t cause serious problems. The only problem tied to this so far is intestinal malrotation. |
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