Post Op #2

Liam ended up going down to surgery yesterday first with Dr. Spray. We rolled him down in his bed at 7:30am and I asked the doctor if we could at least kiss his head, since we couldn't hold him this time. My parents kissed him, then Alex and I was allowed to hold his head and kiss him. As soon as I did and whispered a few encouraging words, he began crying so hard and tears were just everywhere, between Liam and his parents and grandparents. It about broke my heart. I snuck his teddy bear in and told the doctor Patton would be watching.

We met with Dr. Spray until about 8:15am and he explained what he thought happened. Where the patch was, basically in the corner of the four chambers, instead of blood flowing across the small hole they left, which is absolutely routine, it was going into the upper chambers instead. He wouldn't know until he went in and saw the heart, but would tell us when he was done.

Our group headed to a lounge area and waited. Our nurse came down at 9:15am and told us that they were already in the chest, which was good news because the surgeons had concern with going through fresh tissue so shortly after the last surgery (they usually wait at least 2 months..this was 2 weeks to the day that they had to go back in). They could see the patch and were about to put him on bypass. A few minutes later, Alex's parents arrived.

We weren't expecting another update to about 10:15 when the nurse came back in about 9:40am and said they were done with the repair and just about to take him off the bypass machine. By 10:30am, we were in the consult room waiting for Dr. Spray. He got there about 10:45a, and basically the original patch had the hole as we know but when the heart expanded, it went from 2 mm to almost 5 mm, tearing across. This was causing the exuberant amount of blood flow into his heart and out into his chest cavity. Poor little man. They reinforced his patch with a particular type of stich and he was on the bypass for only 20 minutes. Dr. Spray was very happy with how surgery went.

It took some time for us to see him but he was out of it most of the day. We had a celebratory lunch at Chipotle, yay, no cafeteria food. Both of our sister's came down in the afternoon to see the little guy. Both sets of parents and Alex's sister headed back while Alex, Heather and I just hung out. I even got Heather to do her homework. Success.

He was awake last night around 9 and just was worming around, dancing, trying to move but he was so sedated I don't think he realized he couldn't move very well. Heather and I went back to the Ronald McDonald House around 10 and played Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader and we are not. Oh well.

Overnight, Liam's temp dropped a little bit so he had a warmer for a little while and the doctor decided to leave the breathing tube in to later this afternoon, allowing him to rest a little bit and take some drugs to fight any anti flammatory issues from having a breathing tube. Heather and I are hanging out in the ICU with the patient, Daddy is working out, showering, getting some normal sense of life back. The doctors are letting Liam take it easy and doing a much slower return to normal, which is perfectly fine with us. Thanks again for all the prayers..just need to get through a solid week or 10 days of good recovery, and then I will breathe again.