Longest Day of My Life...

Well, little man is resting back in the CVICU and looks pretty good for all he has been through. He keeps trying to wake up and fuss and they have to sedate him further. We keep telling them (docs and nurses) that it takes A LOT to sedate this little munchkin but nobody believes us until they experience it. He does still have in the breathing tube which is a blessing for now. He has way too many lines coming out of his wee little body that he would just love to get his hands on. His blood pressure is a little high so they are keeping and eye on that and giving him some meds for that. Other than that, he is stable. Praise God!!

We finally talked to the surgeon about 5:30pm today and he said that it was a complicated procedure due to the way Ethan's heart formed. Before the actual repair, they had to close off some more collaterals they didn't know about. They were tiny but were not allowing Ethan to get on the heart/lung bypass machine properly because the pressures were lowered with them open. They patched the VSD (hole between the ventricles) with some of Ethan's own muscle from another part of the heart. He also widened the pulmonary artery with the same sort of patch. Apparently Ethan really didn't have much of a pulmonary valve to speak of so Dr. Frasier reconstructed it as best he could. He chose to not use a synthetic valve or a human cadaver valve as it would not grow with Ethan and probably force him into surgery again in a few years. With the reconstruction that he was able to do, it will leak and eventually need to be fixed again but hopefully not for a decade or two. Apparently Tetralogy of Fallot patients do pretty well with this kind of reconstruction.

I know there is a ton more they did in there but I think I hit the main parts. He came off of bypass very well and is doing well. The surgeon said that in surgery they did not see any signs of him having the flu or being sick based on the secretions they were monitoring so lets pray that nothing develops. So, while all is well, he just had major surgery. Please pray for no complications and that he comes out of this like a champ.

To God be the glory! -h