A Bish Tale: Round Two! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! (Trey titled this one)

Brody made it through surgery like the champ that we know he is. Surgery day was incredibly long and exhausting. They came and got us from our room around 7 and put us in the holding room. I held him while we waited there to soak up all my time with him. We met with the anesthesiologist and went over a few things and right about 8 am I placed him in the doctor's arms to be taken back to surgery. I did so much better than I thought I would. Leading up to surgery just thinking about them taking him back would make me burst into tears, but I didn't cry. I kinda gave myself a pep talk that morning to stay strong. Brody will be needing more surgeries in the future and he will be aware of what's going on. I needed to practice being strong because he can't have me breaking down when he goes into surgery when he is older. I chocked up quite a bit on the walk to the waiting room, but handled it pretty well. Trey and I both kept to ourselves intitally, and I finally did lose it a little, but once they started giving us updates I seemed to feel better and better.

The updates seemed to move really slow. It was well into the afternoon before they were actually to his heart and working on it. It takes a while to get him all set up and then it takes even longer to cut through all the scar tissue. They surgeon really takes his time to ensure he doesn't damage anything, and I am ok with that. With this procedure they took his pulmonary valve and made it his new aortic valve. His pulmonary valve isn't normal, but it functions well and they felt like still making that switch would give Brody the best outcome and put him further out before needing another surgery (rather if they put in a fake valve that wouldn't grow with him). They then put in a donor valve that would be his new pulmonary valve. The surgeon told us the valve came from a 5 year old so it was big and would hopefully buy him a lot of time before he outgrows it. It's a little hard to take that in. For Brody to get that much needed valve, a 5 year old had to make his/her way to heaven. We got a card that we are supposed to hang on to that says he has this donor valve. It also provides an opportunity to write a letter to the donor family. I know I plan to write something, but I just need a little time. I don't know how to find the right words to say to that family. Surgery was finally over and we met with the surgeon at 8pm. He was happy with how things went and how things looked. His hope was that Brody would have a good weekend and they could keep him moving through the recovery process. We finally got to see Brody about 9 or 10 and he looked so good. They even had him in the same bed space as last time. All the nurses asked how we managed that. He looked so much different this go around. He had a few less lines and tubes, but I think his size made it less overwhelming. There was more space for all the stuff to go. We didn't stay long because it was late and we were exhausted. We wanted to try and get some sleep while we knew Brody would be nice and sedated.

Friday morning we came to see him and he had a pretty good night, but we were facing our first possible complication. Brody's EKG was showing an irregularity with ST depressions (believe me I just pretend to know what I am talking about). Anyways, this can sometimes be a common occurance after surgery, but is a little more concerning with the type of surgery Brody has. There was concern that his coronary arteries weren't pumping blood through like they should. During surgery these arteries had to be cut and reattached, so it makes sense for there to be concern. They wanted to get him into the Cath Lab quickly, so they could intervene sooner than later if in fact there was an issue. In the cath lab, they would sedate him again, inject contrast into his aorta, and then go through an artery in the groin to the heart to take pictures of the coronaries and make sure they were functioning properly. The whole thing was only going to take a few hours, so we got our buzzer and waited. Our first update was just that they had him sedated again, and the second one was that they were done. Everything looked good and there was no obstruction. They even called his surgeon in to look at everything and he was very happy with what he saw. So we were back to being on the road to recovery again.

Over the weekend Brody stayed pretty sedated. He spiked a fever on Saturday, so they did some blood cultures and everything came back negative. Awesome! Sunday his urine output slowed way down and so there was conern that his kidneys were not functioning like they should. We were also back to having issues with fluid in and around the lungs, so they increased his diuretics. This seemed to do the trick and we were back in business.

Monday morning his fever spiked again and they did a rapid results culture to where we would find out in a matter of hours if he had an infection rather than waiting 24-48 hours. Everything has come back negative with that also. The thought is that after surgery you expect a period of time where they will have a fever. Brody's immune system is already compromised, so it may mean that his time frame is extended. Again, they are being very cautious and not writing anything off.They took out his chest tube today and we are looking at getting rid of the breathing tube in the next 24 hours. Last time we went back and forth with the breathing machine, so they want to make sure he is really ready before they get rid of it.

People ask us how we are doing and we immeditely start giving the Brody update. They then ask, "but how are YOU doing?" Trey and I are doing well. We feel very cautiously optimistic. We hear good news, but we are still reluctant because of our history. I keep waiting to have the rug pulled out from underneath me. We are so greatful for how things are going though. Everything seems to be moving along smoothely. We both just want to pick him up and snuggle him, but we have a little bit of time before that can happen. Hopefully we will lose the breathing tube tomorrow, and we can hold him then. I keep saying I miss him. I sit here all day next to him, but I still miss him like crazy. I miss holding him (obviously), I miss him being awake and laughing and interacting with me. It will all come in its own time, so for now I will sit here and hold his hand.