An Eventful 24 Hours

So the last 24 hours have been Interesting to say the least. Here are some of the "highlights".

-when we got to pre-op they pretty much immediately gave Carson Versed. Not sure if that was for the child or parents, but it did sure make that hour of waiting go fast. We got some awesome snuggles from Carson.

-the "day of surgery lounge" as it's called at the U where we got to spend a lovely 7 hours seriously needs some work. It's like a dr waiting room from 1980. My butt still hurts from the chairs and the privacy there is nonexistent.

-there was the nice family there that we sat across from. The mom was 45 and had an aortic anurism. It sounded like her surgery went as well as could be expected so that was great.

-I still think dr p is one of the nicest doctors I've ever met. When he came to tell us that he didn't think the surgery worked you could tell he was upset. He said he thought about closing him up when things didn't look so good for the graft, but he knew that Dave and I really wanted him to try. So even if it was a small chance he was going to do it.

-I got to see the inside of Carsons tummy. Dr p took pictures and shared them with us. Kind of freaky.

-when dr p met with us he told us we should get to see Guy in ten minutes. An hour later we asked and were told he was still in the OR. At two hours after freaking out just a bit I was just rounding the corner to go get some answers when I saw the receptionist talking to Dave. He was finally in the PICU and we could go see him. We headed up to the floor and as we got off the elevator the anesthesiologist was there and took us to tell us what had gone on. Sounded like when they attempted to extibate Carson he "crashed". Not sure if that's the right word, but his bp and heart rate dropped and they had to give him epinephrine to get him going again. She had trouble reinitiating him and ended up he was intibated three times. You could tell from her and the surgeons that was in the room that our Guy totally gave them one heck of a scare.

-our challenge now is pain management and his lungs. He had a partial collapse of one of his lungs and is sounding very congested. His O2 is sitting at 96 but that's on 2L of 100% O2. Goal will be to ween him off the oxygen today and see how that goes. They will also be taking out his arterial line and cath today so two less tubes. Right now he has 2 IVs, an arterial line, ng tube, oxygen canulas, heart monitor probes and oxygen monitors. When another Rex shunt mommy told be there would be tubes everywhere she wasn't joking! As far as pain goes he is on dexmedetomidine, tylenol and morphine and that seems to be working alright now. They added the dexmed last night because the morphine wasn't cutting it and because of that we got a decent night sleep. He wakes up every 4 hours like clockwork for an additional bolus of morphine (he is also on a drip) and his Tylenol and to freak out a little.

-we will have a Doppler study sometime today to see if there is any blood flow. No one here seems very optimistic.

So that's pretty much where we are now. Thanks to everyone for your prayers and we ask that you keep them coming. I'll be sad if we did this for nothing and the shunt doesn't work, but I know neither Dave nor I would change anything. We figure if we didn't try we would always wonder and the longer the veins in the liver sit empty the more "damaged" they become so the chances of it working would have been even less.