met the surgeon

On Wednesday we were at the hospital for 7 or 8 hours for our pre-admitting visit. It was a long day but J.J. had lots of fun at least! We met with the anesthetist, surgeon, nurse, play therapist, physiotherapist, nurse educator, had a chest xray and also met with the ENT doctor. (On Monday when J.J. has his heart cath they're going to put his ear tubes back in as they fell out.)

We'll be there most of the day on Monday for the heart cath, he'll probably go under around 10:30 am. We have to stay in the recovery room for 4 hours then hopefully we can leave with an IV in when we take him home so that they won't have to start a new IV the next morning.

We go in for 6:30 on Tues am, J.J.'s open heart surgery is scheduled for 7:45. The surgeon was very confident that this will be much lower risk than when J.J. was a baby. We found out that even though he'll be on the heart and lung machine he won't have his heart stopped for this surgery so that lowers a lot of the risks. The surgery will probably take about 5 hours.

We found out that they are doing early extubations now (taking kids off of the breathing machine as soon as possible) which means that the kids can't be as heavily sedated in the ICU. They will still manage the pain but J.J. will be a little more awake (whereas before the kids were 'paralyzed'). That will be different having him more aware in the ICU and we will try to have someone with him around the clock if we can.

If everything goes well, the best-case scenario would be: in the ICU for 2-3 days then up on the ward for 5-7 days. On the ward we have our own room and one of us will sleep over with him. Hopefully we can spend a fair bit of time with Jackie once we're on the ward as they have a fun playroom and we'll watch some movies in our room etc.

It's looking good to go in as scheduled, they haven't had a cancellation for cardiac surgery for 1 1/2 months

Now to get ready! A few things to buy, get packed, clean up the house....

Thanks everyone for your encouragement and prayers.