Lombard boy's second heart surgery delayed until Monday

The wait for the family of 16-month-old Tim Grobart is getting excruciatingly longer.

That's the bad news -- his risky heart surgery was put off today, until Monday.

But Tim's parents also learned today some good news about their toddler's heart.

Tim suffers from a rare heart condition in which the lower half of his heart operates in reverse.

Instead of the stronger half of his heart pumping blood to his body, it is serving his lungs. And the weaker half is working in overdrive to pump blood to his body, his parents say.

"To look at him you would never know there is anything remotely wrong with him," said Jeff Grobart, Tim's dad.

Tim also was born with other heart defects. A hole in his heart was repaired when he was just 5 months old. During that same surgery, a pacemaker was in-stalled to remedy an irregular heartbeat.

"We were hoping that would be enough," his Christine Grobart, his mother.

Unfortunately, it wasn't.

Tim was expected this morning to undergo his second heart surgery, in Michigan, but doctors delayed the procedure until Monday to free up more space in the hospital's cardiac ICU, where Tim will go to recover.

The surgery will be to fix a leaking valve that creates a back-flow of blood to his lungs.

During the estimated two-hour procedure, a University of Michigan pediatric heart surgeon will put a band around Tim's pulmonary artery to control blood-flow and remedy the leaking valve.

Though disappointed with the delay, his parents did discover that plans to install a new pacemaker can be delayed because Tim's heartbeat is regulating itself suffi-ciently -- at least for now.

Doctors are trying to prepare Tim's body for a more complicated surgery in the future to reverse his heart's function. Called a double switch, the procedure involves disconnecting major blood vessels from the heart chambers they are currently at-tached to and reconnecting them to the correct chambers.

"We've been told it's one of the most complicated, if not the most complicated heart surgery," his father, Jeff Grobart said. "They are rewiring the major com-ponents of your heart."

Even if all goes well Tim's future will involve operations roughly every five years for pacemaker repairs and replace-ment. There's also a chance he might need a heart transplant.

"We have our moments of freaking out," Jeff Grobart said. "The other 98 percent of the time we just try to be good parents. We've got people who know what they are doing. We're trying to stay as positive as we can."

To help defray remaining medical expenses from Tim's first surgery and his future surgeries and care -- which also includes echocardiograms, angiograms -- an account has been opened for him at Chase Bank in Lombard.

Friends and relatives also are planning "Shop & Share" days in March at Jewel, where the grocer will donate a portion of identified sales to Tim.

"You do what you can," said longtime friend Joshua Dehnke. "If we were in their shoes, I'm sure they would do the same for us."

Wife Katie Dehnke said you have to help when you know Tim: "He's adorable. He's an angel. He's always happy."

The Grobarts have been overwhelmed by the support.

"To have friends and family ease the burden a bit, it makes a world of difference," Jeff Grobart said. "It's not just the money. You don't have to worry about paying the bills. It's also that they care enough. You're not in it alone. You've got a network of people behind you. It's not just words. It's people actually doing stuff for you."

"It gives you a lot of faith in humanity."

How to help

Donate: Send checks made to Timothy Grobart, account number 2333490080, Chase Bank, 233 E. Roosevelt Road, Lombard, IL 60148, Attn: Linda M. DiBrito.

Participate: Jewel Shop & Share days, in which Jewel will donate 5 percent of identified purchases to Tim's account. The first will be held March 3-5. Call Katie Dehnke at thet78@yahoo.com for details and the Shop & Share forms closer to the event.

Stay tuned: Get updates on Tim's progress and fundraisers at www.carepages.com under TimGrobart written as one word.