Heart Surgery

What. A. Day.

I want to write down all of my thoughts while they are still fresh in my mind! 

Our day started bright and early! Vong and I went to bed around midnight last night... Why did we do that to ourselves?! Lol prob cause we were so nervous/anxious. I woke up at 2:30 to feed Roman his last bottle of breast milk before the cut off time. We had to be at the hospital at 6 am, so I woke up at 4:30 to pump and make sure we were all ready so we didn't have to rush. 

We got to the hospital and got all checked in, it was quite the bumpin place at 6 am! I was a huge ball of nerves all morning, if I looked at Roman too much I would tear up :( he was being SO cute the entire time we were waiting.

Seriously?! I die. That little gown.

Anyways so we waited in the pre-op area for our surgeon to come and talk to us before the procedure. He finally came to talk to us and the first words out of his mouth were "Hey, I'll be doing Roman's surgery, I don't know what I'll be doing once I get in there, I'll have to wait and see." Ummm excuse me?! Hahaha I almost had a heart attack right there. Then he went on to explain that his last echo pictures were kind of shotty and he couldn't see clearly what he was working with until he opened him up. (Probably should have started with that part lol) then he got out a piece of paper and drew some diagrams of exactly what he would be doing to repair the heart, which was really informative for us. He explained the bypass machine, which I knew it obviously bypassed your heart, but I had no idea how it actually worked! So for all those people reading this that aren't medical savvy... It basically takes all of your blood out of your body, oxygenates it, and then puts it back in (which is what the heart does for your blood). Medical technology seriously blows my mind! After he explained everything he gave us a pager that we would receive updates on through out the surgery, then we signed our lives, Roman's life, away. 

Next the anesthesiologist came over to have us sign some more forms. At this point Roman had fallen asleep, seriously a God send. I was so worried he would be super hunger and just be crying right until we had to hand him over, and that really stressed me out. Luckily we have the most chill babe in the world, and he just sucked on his hand and fell asleep. 

Mommy snuggles before sending him back. 

So the anesthesiologist told us it was time, and we walked back to the doors of the OR hallway and we had to hand him over. I did a lot better than I expected I only cried for a few minutes! Haha.

Then it was the waiting game! Our surgeon told us it would take between 4-5 hours + the sedation and getting him onto bypass would take about an hour and a half. We went down to the surgery waiting room... I'll be honest it was depressing, we immediately knew we could not sit in there for 6+ hours. Luckily we had a friend who had been through a similar surgery with her little guy a few months ago, she told us about the Ronald McDonald room upstairs. We decided to go check it out. It was SO nice. They had a bunch of couches, recliners, nap rooms, showers, and a gigantic fully stocked kitchen... All for free. What?! Seriously amazing. It is out on almost completely by volunteers, so cool. So we lounged around there for probably an hour. We got our first update around 9:30 am. It said the incision had been made, and he was on bypass doing well. It was so surreal to think our little babe was just lying open on a table down stairs. Eeek. After the Ronald McDonald room we got kind of antsy and went for a walk over to the U of U hospital, that was weird to be back there since we had spent so many weeks in the NICU just a few months ago. Then we went back to the hospital and found this sweet roof top patio with tables and chairs. The doors were open so we went outside. We sat on the roof in February?! It was such a beautiful day. I just laid on two chairs and let the sun hit my face, so relaxing! By this time it was about 11:30 and we got another page saying Roman was off bypass, they had done a post-op Echo, and they were just closing him up! What?! Only a few hours in? They said the surgeon would be up in about an hour to talk to us, so we headed back down to the depressing waiting room. Seriously anyone who has been there knows what I'm talking about. It's like these weird cubicle sections so it's kind of private but not really. 

Dr Eckhauser came and told us that everything went really well. He was able to use tissue from his pericardium to patch the holes, and part of his hole had actually started closing on its own! He said he was able to successfully split his one big valve into 2. He said the right side he was able to fix perfectly, but the left valve, his mitral valve, does have a small leak. He was expecting it to have a small leak, and he said Roman can live a perfectly normal life with it like that. I cNt even tell you how relieved Vong and I felt in that moment. It is crazy to me how one minute you can feel so anxious and helpless, and the next you can feel the complete opposite, so calm and not worried. Dr. Eckhauser was seriously the nicest, and we are so glad he was our surgeon! He then told us to wait about an hour and we could go up and see Roman in the Cardiac ICU. 

We couldn't wait to get up there to see him! We walked in and this is what we saw. It was pretty intense to see him like that, but I think I had prepared myself for the worst, so it wasn't as bad as I was expecting. I thought he would be SUPER swollen, but he was hardly swollen at all. He just looked so peaceful. They had started waking him up from sedation, so he was twitching quite a bit. The rest of the day we just hung out by his bedside and waited for him to wake up. 

All of the medications Roman was on right after surgery. Yikes 

Holding Mama's hand. :) 

Caught this cute candid moment with Vong and Roman. My heart! 

Getting his breathing tube out a few hours after surgery. 

Saying goodnight before we headed home to get some rest. I originally planned on sleeping at the hospital every night, but I was so exhausted by the end of the day. The thought of sleeping on a chair sounded like torture haha. The nurse told me to go home and get some good rest, and that she was the highest paid, best babysitter we would ever have. Fact. So glad we went home. Don't worry we slept for TWELVE hours that night. 

I feel like this post is a million miles long so I will write another post about his recovery. I just want to reiterate how thankful we are for all of the support we have received. We couldn't have made it through this day without everyone's love and prayers. Most of all we want to publicly thank our loving Father in Heaven. We have seen his hand in our lives so much through out these past 5 months with Roman in our home. There is no denying that he is constantly watching over us, and pouring so many blessings on us, even if we may not deserve all of them. The morning of Roman's surgery I told Heavenly Father in my prayer that Roman had way too much good to bring people on this earth to return to him this soon, and I pleaded with him to watch over him. I don't think have ever said a more sincere prayer in my life. I'm so grateful that His plan  involved Roman staying here longer. He really does brighten so many people's days. We are so so so blessed he is in our family for eternity! I'm grateful that this day is behind us, we made it through the hardest day of our lives so far, and hopefully the hardest day we will have for a while haha! Knock on wood. Vong and I Love all of you! Thank you again for loving us, and sweet baby Roman.