icu time...

We just met with the surgeon. Because of the difficulty in the surgery, they've closed up the skin on his chest but left the bone open. So he'll have to go in again tomorrow afternoon for a quick (half hour) wire-up of his chest bone. It sounds like he was a little swollen up, and so they were taking extra precausions. He's still intubated (has a machine doing his breathing for him) and he has a pacemaker hooked up to his heart to try to get his rythm right. He has 3 or 4 drainage tubes coming out of his chest. They'll keep him right snowed under until tomorrow after they've got his chest bone wired back up.

The valve they put in came from a cow. It's in some kind of cloth tube conduit. Sounds like everything is alright. We should be able to see him in a few minutes. He won't be able to respond to us, but apparently he can hear us when we talk, and feel when we touch him.

The stent in his right pulmonary was expanded from 6mm to 8mm to match the rest of the artery. They didn't use a patch for that but they did patch his ASD

They will keep him on the ventilator until Thurs or Fri and then it'll be at least another day before the ward as long as everything keeps going smoothly. The ICU isn't our favourite place but we'll make the best of it. We definitely have a love-hate relationship with this hospital! But we're really grateful for the awesome care J.J. gets.