Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Surgery Date Set

Miles' surgery date is set.

July 28th we report to the U of M Amplatz Children's Hospital at 5am. Yes, 5am check in! Poor guy can't eat anything either for a long time prior.  Surgery is scheduled for 7am.  They haven't told us many details, as it'll be discussed at his pre-op appointment on July 24th.

On that day, he'll have a pre op exam, another echocardiogram, chest x ray (we think), blood work, and meet with the surgeon.  I told Ryan I think we should bring a nice aromatherapy candle for the surgeon and encourage him to have a relaxing, stress free, (non partying :) ) weekend so he can be well rested and alert for Monday's surgery.  We pray that Miles stays healthy, and that our surgery doesn't get bumped. If there's a more critical newborn, or a transplant that arrives, those cases get priority over ours. I wouldn't normally mind, but we're on a tight schedule as I go back to school the end of August and, we just really, really want to get this over with.

Miles will be having a small hole repaired (maybe two, can't even remember), as well as a complete AV canal repair surgery.  The AV canal is what requires him to have full open heart surgery.  To our knowledge, he'll be in for about two weeks, give or take, depending on his recovery and no infections, feeding, etc.

I've even been googling "infant post heart surgery" photos to prepare myself. I read on a blog that we should ask to see another infant through a window, just so we can try to prepare ourselves for what's about to come back out of that operating room.  It really won't be our Miles. At all.  He'll be sedated for 48 hours, and all we literally do is wait, pray, and watch.  He'll be on bypass during surgery and a ventilator after. We won't be having visitors while in the NICU, and probably only immediate family after that if they allow it.

I'll stay at the hospital the entire time to nurse him and bottle feed him as often as necessary.  He may need a feeding tube for a little while, but I've been told that how he eats before surgery is how he'll eat after. I have a REALLY hard time imagining nursing an 11 pound baby hooked up to a million wires and tubes.  We'll see. Nolan will be with family for the duration and I'll miss him like crazy. We're hoping the second week I can go home for a few hours to be with him, or he can come visit us and eat dinner, play outside, etc. Ryan will work most of the time during the day and come back at night, as it seems silly to have him use up vacation time to just sit in a hospital. We'll have plenty of appointments to take him to after he's out that we'll need Ryan to help with. (No teacher wants a sub in September. Yikes.)

Please keep Miles in your prayers so that he has a quick recovery, for Dr. St. Louis to have incredibly steady, talented hands to tend to our boy's tiny heart, courage and bravery for mom and dad, and compassion and understanding for Nolan.  Our superhero's going to be under the radar for awhile, but hopefully he'll be back stopping crime in no time. Super Miles!

2 comments:

  1. Prayers going up and if you email me your address I will send you a quilt for him too. You guys are so brave, I cannot even imagine this. Hugs and prayers from Angela Neff

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  2. You are all so strong. Will be thinking and praying for your family.

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