Surgery Day

We left this morning at a comfortably normal time of 6:45, which sure beats a 5:00 departure time. The car ride was quiet, soft radio music filled the still air, we drove into the calm of the sun rays as they barely peeked over the horizon. 

7:30 am We arrived at the hospital. We were quickly assigned a room and we waited. 

Hailey watched TV as nurses came in and out. We spoke with the anesthesiologist and he explained the whole process to us. Hailey's friend's mom also works at the hospital, so she came by to say "Hi." 

At 9:30 Hailey was given a dose of Versed and by 9:45, she was feeling very loopy. 

She was scheduled to go into surgery at 10, but Dr. Frasier was held up for some reason and she was admitted a just a few minutes later than scheduled. According to the nurses, that's just how they roll int he cardiac unit. 

We gave her our final hugs and they wheeled her in. For the first time, I felt butterflies in my stomach. 

In the meantime, we were assigned a waiting room to hang out in. At 11:15 the nurse came in and said that Hailey is responding well to the anesthesia and they will get started soon. Our next update will be at the surgery start. 

Around 12:30 The nurse came in again to let us know that the first incision has been made. Interesting fact: Even if they were to just open her up and close her up, without doing anything to her heart, it would be a 4 hour procedure. There's a team of 10+ people working on Hailey directly and who knows how many other people indirectly involved. We are thankful for modern medicine and this opportunity to get her heart fixed. 

1:45 Update. Hailey is hooked up to the bypass machine and things are going well. 

3:15 Update. Hailey is off the bypass machine. This means the procedure is completed, they are doing a final EKG on her to make sure everything is working ok and the surgeon should be closing her up and scrubbing out in about 45 minutes. 
 

3:37 I love when people under-promise but over-deliver. Dr. Frasier came in personally and talked to us about the procedure. She's doing well and things look good. We had a few questions for him: 

Will Hailey need a pacemaker in the future? Likely not, but not 100% 

Will she need to continue her atenolol? Debatable, but it will be up to her regular cardiologist to decide. 

Are they able to see the cause of the HCM? They have the tissue that they cut out and will conduct a biopsy. He asked the nurse to tell the lab to personally call him after they perform the biopsy. 

Has the scar tissue gotten worse? No, it was not touching the aortic valve yet. 

How long until we find out how turbulent the blood flow is?  It is already not turbulent anymore. The blood is flowing out smoothly. 

Anything unexpected come up during surgery? The tissue that he cut out was very fibrous in nature. He described it as "gristle-y." He showed us a picture of what he cut out -- a little piece of tissue about 1 inch in length along with some white-ish membrane. 

So, they will be getting her all ready to go into her room to recover. We won't be able to see her until about 5ish or after 5. They expect her to be semi-conscious tonight. 

Now the tough part begins: restraining a toddler with a fixed heart from being too active.