Surgery Day

Alan's first surgery was a very long day. We hugged him and said goodbye early early in the morning and watched him wheel back to the OR which is luckily only feet away from the CICU. We spent our time in the waiting room with the grandmas and grandpas. The plan was to complete the procedure without having to go on the bypass machine. We were getting hourly updates from Esther, the surgery liason. We got news that he was done and that his chest was being closed up.

Then.. next thing that happened, Esther came back out and pulled us to a private waiting room to talk with us. Apparently right as he was being closed up, he started de-sating and all his numbers went crazy and they didn't know what was going on but had to put him on heart-lung bypass and go back in. We were terrified. The next update was that Dr. Campbell, the surgeon, had found that the shunt had clotted. He had to go in and re-do the shunt. It turned into a very long day. Finally he was done and able to be taken off the heart-lung machine but had to have his chest left open for a few days because he was too swollen to be stitched back up. Finally at the end of the day we got to see Alan.


He was in rough shape that night and for the next several days. He was on the ventilator. He had tons of meds going into him - about 22 was what we counted. Three chest drains, which pull out excess blood and fluid. He had a Foley catheter in for urine.










Alan's chest stayed open for several days. The opening was covered with a patch. The cool part was that you could see his heart beating beneath the patch. He was very swollen and puffy. We were warned before seeing Alan post-op that he would be difficult to look at. Honestly though we were pleasantly surprised. It was such a relief after that day just to see him.