Caleb back from Surgery

Finally! We were able to see the baby. :) Eric came down and waited for the last part. I have to say that was the most horrid wait right there. I was so excited to see him!!

When we went into the room there were 4 attendants getting him ready and checking on everything. You would not believe the wires coming out of this kid--heck, we were prepared for it and we couldn't believe how many there were. He has monitors everywhere (except his right hand). He's back out of the crib and back into the warmer now. So he's naked and laying there exposed (with a diaper covering) and yet quite comfortable.

They have him sedated, on the vent, and there are lines draining his chest--lines draining here, lines putting fluids back in there. The most dramatic of all these new additions is the large orange spot on his torso. It covers a green membrane in the center of his chest. Underneath is his open chest and his beating heart. Yes... you can see his little heart beating. Kinda creepy, kinda cool. (Please note Eric was more freaked out by the blood that was hanging from his IV pole than the open chest!)

They were going to spend the night doing various tests and adjustments. Everything he does is measured. The baby is sedated, but still can move around a little--he reacts to touch and a little to sound as well. He's on morphine, so he probably is interpreting things a little differently than normal. He was getting a echo on his heart when the surgeon came in again to peek in on him.

"How is it going?" he asked, looking over the shoulder of the tech. This may be an important time to note that we signed up Caleb for a clinical trial. After being on the heart/lung machine thyroid function drops severely for a few days. The trial is seeing if offering thyroid hormone replacement theripy for a few days after surgery will help speed recovery time. It's a 50/5o placebo controlled test. We will never know if the baby got the real thyroid drugs or not. ANYHOW... that was the reason for the echo.

During this test, they're supposed to not share information. The trial people do echos, but are not supposed to share information with the doctors. Well, I suppose it must be awfully hard to keep information from a surgeon who is standing behind you, and who is also on the board of people conducting the study.

"Wow," he said. "That heart function is very good. That's even better than in the operating room, that's fantastic. I was going home happy, and now I'm going home very happy." "And I am going home now."

Awesome. I asked the nurse what she thought about me going home. Honestly, I feel a little drunk and like I need a whole bottle of wine at the same time. (Fear not, campers, I had nothing to drink). I was so tired and so excited and so... EVERYTHING!

The nurse just told me to go home. She said that they were trying to keep Caleb quiet for the first several hours, and it's a great time for us to go home and get some rest. I wanted to play music for him and read him some chapters of our book, but it was really clear to me that it wasn't going to happen that evening until everything calmed down. And that wasn't going to happen for a long time.

"Go home, sleep, call us if you want an update," the nurse said. "He's doing just exactly as well as we could hope, he's doing beautifully."

I didn't want to leave him at the same time I wanted to go home and rest. Eric got me out the door, and I nearly turned around only ten million times. Honestly, I knew we were getting in the way. Caleb obviously just wanted to rest (he moved at anyone touching him) and he managed to get his hands in his "favorite" position (right fist by his mouth, left by his ear). The nursing staff always offers to pull up a chair for you, but they didn't offer us anything to sit on. They asked us to move more than once! :) I think we were a little in the way, but Children's does a good job of balancing parental involvement with treatment of patients.

I am so happy right now. My little baby boy is on the road to recovery! I have a million tears to cry still, and they're all happy ones. This is something I've been waiting for since November, and I just feel as if I've been lifted up 10 million feet by the news that he made it through the surgery and is doing beautifully!

I'll update again tomorrow. The surgeons mentioned that in 12-24 hours after the surgery several kids have a short decrease in heart function--that they start out great and have what seems to be a mini setback. If this happens, he said not to worry about it, it's fairly common and the function returns in nearly all the cases. So I'll... keep you updated. LOL I should macro that statement.