A hole in the heart, healed.

The final post in our journey to have G's heart and his AVSD and valve repaired.  I'll prewarn you, there are photos involved, so if you're squeamish about seeing medical photos, avert your eyes.

Around 11:30am, literally just as we're done praying, our surgical coordinator comes in to tell us that G is out of surgery and the doctor will be down to give us the update. My heart leaps; our boy made it.  He really made it. And now the recovery began...

The surgeon told us that they found not only one hole, but three holes in G's heart. Dr. Emani was able to repair all three holes, patching the largest hole (which was bigger than they expected at about 22mm) with tissue from G's pericardial sac, and stitching the other two holes closed. The surgeon also repaired the cleft valve and was optimistic that G wouldn't need surgery again for any of these issues. Once they had him cleaned up, we were brought to his room and I about cried with joy to see our boy.


Our first view of our little man, in the CICU recovery unit

Believe it or not, my first reaction was that he looked so GOOD!  They had prepared us for the worst, but when we saw him, I was amazed that other than looking swollen, he looked as normal as could be. Well, normal with tons of wires, tubes, meds, beeping and all that. Honestly, the CICU staff had done an amazing job of cleaning him up and getting him comfortable. I was able to kiss his little head and rub his little leg to let him know we were there.



He was so tall that they had to put him in a regular bed instead of a crib!

We left to tell our family the great news and let my sister and my Dad in to see G before they left for the night. He was still sedated at this point, but we were estatic and just praised God for His work.



Wires, tubes and all, he looked so GOOD to us!

So, after a few hours, the nurses decided that he was doing well enough to start removing some of the tubes and to encourage him to breath on his own. At this point, his heart was beating on it's own, but they needed to make sure that everything was going to progress according to their plan, so they administered some drugs to start bringing him out of sedation. Normally, the nurses said, the meds take about an hour to really kick in. G, on the other hand, had his own time table. About 20 minutes after the meds were administered, he started to pull at his breathing tube and had to be restrained. The nurses kicked into high gear and TDH Man and I just stood back, watching five nurses hold our little boy down while he struggled and tried to scream. And this is the second time my heart wanted to leap from my chest. The CICU Resident held G's head and looked at TDH Man and me and repeated "He's not going to remember any of this... this is all normal. He's doing great." Meanwhile, the other four nurses ran around G's bed, performing an obviously well-coordinated ballet of procedures to get our boy breathing on his own. TDH Man and I just stood there, at a complete loss, praying with each second that he would breathe, just breathe. After what seemed an eternity, they were able to stablize him and he opened his eyes and this time it was obvious that he was seeing us and was out of the sedation. His oxygen levels weren't great and so they kept him on oxygen for a while, so he wasn't able to talk fully. He kept crying through the mask and sometimes, I'll admit that I am still haunted by the sound of his muffled voice screaming for me.

So close to breathing on his own

When they finally were able to get him stable and his oxygen levels at a decent rate, the mask came off. At this point, TDH Man and I were working shifts to combat the exhaustion of being up 24 hours. Did I forget to mention that I was also 14 weeks pregnant with our third child?  Oh yeah, there was that too. TDH Man was there when they finally took his mask off and were able to remove one of his central lines. His first words?

"I watch Elmo now?"

Hanging with Hopper, loving the fact that he has a TV in bed all to himself

We spent the next 24 hours keeping him comfortable, getting him to sleep as much as possible and trying to get him to drink a bit of water. With every passing hour, he looked a little better and some new wire or tube was removed.

Hopper keeping watch over G

 A little over one day later, our little man, 22 months old, was able to move out of the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit and onto the recovery floor. And here we took turns watching Elmo, Elmo and more Elmo.

One day after open-heart surgery.





Swollen face, but drinking water and feeling much better

The next two days went by slowly and we made about a million laps around the hospital, keeping our healing boy entertained however possible. More tests were run to make sure that the surgery had fixed G's AVSD and valve and make sure that he was drinking and eating as he should be. TDH Man and I slept when possible, including a night where TDH man slept in the playroom on the recovery floor while the creepy dolls watched over him. I slept by G's side because the fold-out bed wasn't long enough for my 6' 9" husband. 

 



When the nurses started talking about letting G go home only 48 hours after surgery, we were eager to get him off all his meds and prepped to go home. His surgery had been on Tuesday morning and by Friday morning, the attending doctors gave us the go ahead to have him discharged. We were so happy and so ready to leave. He had one stitch and surgical glue to close the wound. Everything looked great (literally!) and we spend the next few hours getting discharge instructions and signing more paperwork to get our boy released. By 2:00pm on Friday, August 3, G was discharged from Children's Hospital and we were on our way home, healed heart and all... well, almost.




His new badge of courage
 

We arrived at home late Friday afternoon. I can't even describe how relieved I felt to just have our little boy in his own bed. We had been told that the next week was crucial to his recovery and that if he got even the slightest fever, we were to call the hospital immediately. G was acting completely normal and you honestly wouldn't ever realized that just three days before, he's been in the intensive care unit, recovering from open-heart surgery. He even ate chicken nuggets for dinner on the way home! That night, we gave him his pain medications and put him to bed, safe and sound.

 

But G's body had other plans...