Surgery - Great News!

I don't have the software on my laptop that I have on my tower computer at home - so one of the pictures would not stay rotated....but I had to include it anyway.

So yesterday morning we were to be at the hospital at 7:30 for supposed surgery at 9:30.  We arrived with plenty of time to spare (shouldn't have).  Got through the different steps to arrive at the pre-op area & notice that it states surgery is at 10:10.  Now back up one day - prior to Wednesday we had been scheduled for 8:00 AM, with an arrival at 6:00 AM.  On Wednesday they called to say there was a "quick" procedure that had to be added on before Amie's surgery, so her surgery was backed up an hour and a half.  Now it appears to be a little more than two hours backed up.  When we asked the nurse if that meant there was a third case now - she said no, that the office doesn't always tell the patients what the surgery schedule says....ok that's interesting.

But - that's not the end of that part of the saga...there also was an emergency on the unit, so Dr. Fortuna got started late to the first case anyway.  Time just kept creeping along!  Luckily - the nurse was fabulous and let Miss Amie stay in her Justin Bieber jammies!!  And she was quite entertained with the computer games they have!

So here she is modeling her surgery cap, with her Bieber PJ's!  Only giving us a semi-grumpy smile!

Fast forward - this picture is taken at about 12:30/12:45!  She's been given Versed & is feeling a bit loopy!  Yes - you saw that time correct!  She was finally taken back to OR at 1:00PM!

We were notified at 3pm that she had just been put on the heart/lung bypass.  That meant it took them almost two hours to get all the lines in, intubation and a trans-esophogeal echo done.

After putting her on the bypass, Dr. Fortuna started working on her leaflets.  In his office & again in the morning - he did not sound very optimistic that a repair to her leaflets would give the results everyone was hoping for.  But - with God's guiding hands, Dr. Fortuna & Dr. Patel sculpted away at those tiny little leaflets & decided to give it a try.  She was taken off of heart bypass around 4:30PM & Dr. Patel did another trans-esophageal echo on her heart & it was AMAZING!!

Her aortic valve went from a size 10 to a 13 (14 being basically perfect).  Her mean pressure gradient went from 65 to 23!!!  And there was NO leaking of the valve (it leaked a little before the surgery, but the biggest problems was the tightness)!  So not only did the least complex surgery make huge improvements in her stenosis!!...It stopped the leaking all together (sometimes messing with loosening up a valve will make it leak worse!)

The surgery went so well - she did not have to have blood as they were concerned she would have to have!!  And she has done incredibly well all night and this morning!

This is what we saw when we were brought to her room last night....kind of scary to see everything that was going on with her & all the people working on her (they stepped back for the picture)!  But they did an amazing job & I must say - the nurses were fantastic!  At one point, the hospitalist wanted to wean back one of her sedating medicines because she was snoring & the nurses won keeping her on it.  She had just been crying and moving all over the place that her back hurt and saying owie!  I'm so glad the nurses won that argument!

And here's a close up of her with lots of stuff going on.

Here she is this morning - very comfortable, and Boochie Boochie watching to make sure everyone takes great care of her!

Oh and the greatest news of all!!  Because she had a repair of her aortic valve instead of a repacement....she may not have to have ANY other heart surgery until adulthood!!  :)  Was so excited about I almost forgot to blog it!!