Repair Surgery Day

I am elated to share that Evin’s surgery was successful and I am currently staring at her as she rests comfortably in the PICU!  God is great!

What a day we have had…

We arrived at 7:00am and waited in a pre-op room while they got Evin’s weight, length, oxygen sats, etc.  All the nurses were shocked at how happy she was for not having eaten since 11:30 last night. 

Here she is modeling the hospital "gown" she was given to wear prior to surgery.  Lookin' pretty cute!

Sidenote:  Mitch and I had set a goal for Evin to weigh at least 13 pounds by her repair surgery and this morning when they took her weight she was EXACTLY 13 pounds.  We thought it was pretty funny!

While we waited, we played with toys...

and read books.

We waited around until 8:30 when they took Evin back to the OR to get her prepped.  This was the hardest and worst part of the day for me.  It took a couple of hours to get her all ready, and we finally got a call around 11:40 that they had just started and Evin was doing great.

We received a phone call every hour to give an update on how things were going and how Evin was doing, and we were always able to breathe a sigh of relief when they said things were going well and Evin was fine. 

Finally, at 5:45pm, they had wrapped things up and we got to meet with the surgeon.  He came out, grinned, and said the surgery went great and that Evin did great as well.  Such relief!

Details of the surgery:

-To remind you, the surgeon was unsure of the size of Evin’s pulmonary valve, and had mentioned there might be a chance that she wouldn’t have to have anything at all done to it and would be able to avoid future valve replacement surgeries.  This was not the case.  He described her valve as, “Horrible.  Really, really bad.”  He said there was no way that valve was going to work, and that he placed a transannular patch on it.  This should last her into her teenage years when she will have to have a valve replacement surgery, and then again every 10-15 years after that.

-Her right lung artery was extremely small as well, and had to be patched.  He said this will need to be monitored by her cardiologist.  If the cardiologist is ever suspicious of turbulent blood flow or leaks, she would call in for Evin to have another cath done to investigate further.  He said he does not anticipate for this to happen, but that it will be monitored.

-He patched the hole between her ventricles.

-He removed the shunt.

-He rerouted her aorta into her left ventricle.

Overall, he seemed extremely pleased!  After 9 hours of waiting, we couldn’t have been more excited to hear that Evin did so well.

She was moved to the PICU after surgery, and we were able to come in to see her at about 7:30.  She has LOTS of wires, tubes, and monitors hooked up to her (which was expected), but she looks even better than I thought she would.

Sweet, sweet girl after surgery.  Sporting the bow that the surgery nurses selected just for her!  Doesn't she look great?!

They are keeping her pretty sedated through the night so she can rest and recover.

The PICU doc said that, “She couldn’t be doing any better.”  If all goes well tonight, tomorrow they hope to remove the breathing tube, chest tube, and quite a few of the lines she has running through her chest.  She is a little swollen, but hopefully that will go down in the next day or so, or they will give her some meds to help it along.  They are hoping she will get good rest tonight and start waking in the morning.  

God's work on Evin never ceases to amaze us.  Our hearts are filled to the brim with gratitude for all the prayers Evin has received over the last few days.  For the past 5 months I feel like I have been praying the same thing over and over and over.  When I felt like my prayers were lacking enthusiasm and falling flat, I know there were so many others lifting them up for me.  I wish there was something we could do to show how much we appreciate the prayers, but for right now, a big THANK YOU will have to do.