Meet the Surgeon

We met Justin's surgeon today. It was a very good appointment. They did the typical doctor appointment checks, but they also did blood pressure in all his limbs. It has typically been very difficult to get a single blood pressure, but trying to get four I thought would be impossible. I didn't ask why, but I suspect it has to do something with seeing how the pressure is on either side of his body and how the heart is working. Just a guess though. So we survived that and then it was meet the surgeon. We actually got to talk in a little conference room rather than an exam room, which I really enjoyed. He went through his explanation of Justin's defect (complete av canal defect) and how he is going to repair it. The surgery should take about 5-7 hours, depending on how the preparation goes. I guess getting all the lines in is the hardest part. They will put him on a heart/lung bypass machine and stop his heart, which is the scariest part for me. They will give us updates every hour either in person (a nurse) or by phone from the ER. When he comes out of surgery he will be intubated and have a couple of drainage tubes and a couple of wires to monitor the heart. He will be in CICU for about 2-3 days, and a regular room for 3-4 days, which is less than we thought-yeah! The tube should come out the day after the surgery and the tubes and wires after that sometime. We can stay with him in his regular room and they even said Travis can come up too! I am not sure that is the best idea, but at least we know it is an option. Of course he had to mention the possible complications, which only account for 5% of cases. It's just the usual things, infection, bleeding, death... After nearly losing my dad last year, and then only having a .3% chance of Justin being born with DS, those seem like huge odds to me, but I just have to trust all the more. The doctor did mention that of all the children who have this defect, the children with DS usually do better because they have extra tissue for the doctor to use in the repair. Yeah?! So then when Justin goes home he will be on 2 medications, one is a diuretic and one is a blood pressure medicine. That should only be for about a month to allow for healing and then no more. He will have a couple of post-op visits with the surgeon and the cardiologist and then we are free! Only annual visits to ensure that the patches and repairs are still holding. There is a small chance that he may need a second surgery, but not for certain.

All in all, it was a good visit. Randy and I got a lot of our questions answered and the surgeon made us feel very comforted. He did mention that he is headed on vacation between now and then so we can hope he is very well rested before he works on Justin. We are so blessed to live in a place where there is a such a great children's hospital. When we mentioned the extra things that need to be considered for Justin's surgery because of the DS, the doctor said that a large portion of the children they see have DS and they are very familiar with those issues. I really can say that of all the doctors we have seen for both boys and even for ourselves, the people at TX Children's have been the most helpful and the most willing to go out of their way to help us. We are having some insurance problems and our geneticist was going to write a scathing letter to the insurance company until his assistant settled him down. But it's such a relief knowing that they really WANT to help rather than just get by with the minimum.

And a side note: I have been worried about how I was going to clean my house while I was at the hospital. I called a friend to keep Travis during an appointment and she happened to mention that she cleans houses and I burst into tears. I had no idea that she did that! But God put it on my heart to call her, and not one of the many other people who have offered to help with Travis and in the process He supplied another need too. God is SO good and I am constantly amazed at the way he provides in unexpected ways.