Today is day 2 of Little Boy's two-day heart repair. Yesterday went well from a technical or medical standpoint -- they blocked off 5 of the 6 extra (collateral) blood vessels in the cath lab and got the measurements they needed for surgery today.
From a parent or a child standpoint, yesterday was pretty tough. Little Boywas his typical happy-go-lucky self in the morning, though a bit on the hungry and thirsty side. When he woke up, however, everything had changed. He needed oxygen to keep his levels safe, he needed heart monitors and oxygen level monitors, he had an IV in one hand, and one leg was wrapped up in a blood pressure cuff that squeezed him every 15 minutes and then every hour until late last night. For a guy on the go, being leashed like this really cramped his style.
But I think what bothered him most was the sore throat he had from the breathing tube he needed during general anesthesia. He was under for 3 1/2 hours, which is about three times as long as the normal cath. It was so sore that it hurt him to drink, so once he got past the ravenous hunger when he first woke up, he wouldn't eat or drink much.
It's so difficult as a parent to sign a form that allows stuff like this to happen to your child. When Elli was a baby, she was very sick and it was very clear to the naked eye that she needed surgery. We were sobered by the weight of such a responsibility -- parenthood turned out to include life-or-death decisions that we had never anticipated -- but it was relatively easy to sign the forms and send her into surgery.
But Little Boy looks to the naked eye to be perfectly healthy. Yesterday's procedure made him very sick. The anesthesia made him miserable. And none of the cuddling, singing, swaying, and tylenol seemed to help him. As a mom, that made me teary a few times, because I'm used to being able to kiss and hug away the hurts. None of my tricks worked yesterday.
The procedure was absolutely necessary to do -- if they didn't take those collaterals out before surgery today the massive amount of blood pumping into the heart from all this vessels would have required continuous blood transfusions during the surgery, and the surgeon would still have struggled to see what he needed to operate on.
So I keep reminding myself of all the things I know to be true and try really hard not to let my emotions follow the circumstances. When it's your son, that is an impossible mission without the Holy Spirit's help, so I covet your prayers on this for the next few days especially.
