Surgery Day

Our little man had his surgery today. We had to be at the hospital at 6 am- uugh! But, that also meant we were the first surgery of the day, which is always a good thing. Surgery started at 7:30 am, by 8:30 am they had finished all the prep (anesthesia, iv's, art lines, echo, etc.), and started the incision. They finished up at noon- I think we saw him at about 1 or 1:30. Dr. Kaza was really pleased with the results- they were able to use a larger, 19 mm porcine valve and conduit this time. This is ideal- pig valves last longer than the homo graft (cadaver tissue) he had before (which was calcified, thus the leaking), and the larger size means he shouldn't outgrow it for several years.

Asher is recovering in the CICU now (cardiac intensive care unit). They removed his breathing tube, and he is on a 1/2 liter of oxygen right now. He should be completely off of oxygen by the morning. He was difficult to sedate after surgery, when he came off of anesthesia. He was on verced, but it didn't last long. He was really upset, trying to take off his tubes and iv's. That was hard to see- he was reaching out to us, but there was nothing we could do for him. Just try to help him lie still and calm down. They gave him precadex, and morphine, and atavan, and finally he calmed down and slept. We'll go back to the hospital in the morning- the game plan is to wean him from sedation, and then start trying bottles. Hopefully all goes well. Thank you for all of your prayers and love. I am dog tired (thus the dry, not cleverly written post- sorry Rachel!), and just want to pass out (2 nights of no sleep + allergies + allergy medicine + heart surgery on your baby will do that to you!).