Surgery Updates

7 am: Drinking coffee with Chris in a darkened hospital room while Joey sleeps. Finding comfort in the sound of that water thing that’s used for his oxygen. I should find out what that’s called.

Waiting for confirmation of start time.

7:07am: LOVE that I posted minutes too early! They want us downstairs at 8. This means that we ARE indeed the first case (things change by the minute here, and I heard whispers that our nurses other patient is in queue for surgery with Dr. Baird today as well.)

8:30 am: They wheeled him back, the anesthesia resident called dibs on carrying him back (she met him last night). Her Attending wouldn’t let her, but DID say that she could be the one to put him on the OR table. Sweet Joseph.

10:30 am: I just received a call that surgery has officially started. Chris just received an invitation to play for the Celtics.

12 pm
He just went on heart/lung bypass. Who knew I would ever type such a thing…

2 pm
Still on bypass, “doing great”.

3:30 pm
Still on bypaaaaaaass. “They’re still plugging away”.

4:30 pm
I just found myself checking my own updates for a new update.

4:50 pm
Examining his work, checking out Joey’s heart, still on bypass. Sounds like they may be done with the surgical intervention piece and that its getting close to time to close his up.

5:10 pm
OFF BYPASS. They are getting ready to close him up. The surgeon likes to hover (yes, please) as they do this. We should see him to get the lowdown in an hour or so.

6:10 pm
We just met with his cardiologist, surgery is officially complete. Next step is recovery – the first 48 hours are never fun, but from what Dr Marx said, he’s super stable. They’ve weaned him off the respirator to 50% with sats in the 90s (the expectation is that he’ll be in the 80s breathing on his own)

They closed his ASD, and left a fenestration. The closed his VSD. Opened the right outflow tract and removed his shunt. Oh, and the Glenn, they did the Glenn. They have already seen some growth in his RV, I kinda feel like this is what Joey wanted. Otherwise I’d imagine he’d still be yelling at us.

Please keep those prayers coming for a sturdy recovery, and that Chris and I can retain all of the information that is being given to us.

Now we wait to see the surgeon, and then our son.

8:30 pm
We just left him. He looks amazing, and quite different from last time. They took pieces of his heart and manipulated them – last time they “simply” required him with the shunt.

Dr. Baird, his surgeon, my new BFF, said that it went better than expected. He had light in his eyes and hugged ME. I felt like he took today as a victory for both himself and Joey.

Now we eat.