Cameron's heart surgery: day3

Today was the culmination of our last 6 months.  It is literally the day that we have been waiting for.  It is also one of the most stressful days of my entire life.  We arrived at the hospital at 10AM to be admitted and then we waited again.  There really is a lot of waiting when you are having a scheduled surgery.  We received word that we would definitely be going for surgery which was simultaneously relieving and gave us more to worry about.  Again Cameron is a trooper and hardly complained about his second day of not eating.  By the time the stretcher came to get our sweet little man he was really hungry, so Justin jumped on the gurney and made him laugh most of the way to the surgery area.  Already emotional, my nerves grew with every step closer to where we handed our angel to the anesthesiologist.  I was expecting to be able to take him into the operating room like I've been able to do for the other two boys and felt very jolted when the anesthetist very abruptly told me she wouldn't allow it and took my baby and left.  It was then that I burst into tears and immediately used an entire box of tissue.

Then we waited 4 hours.

It was an interesting 4 hours.  Justin did a good job distracting me and while it went slowly I didn't spend the entire time crying and instead only cried periodically.

Finally we planted ourselves in the waiting room and eagerly waited for any news from Dr. Ross.  He finally came and gave us the information we needed.  Cameron's repair was beautiful.  He is very happy with how his heart is working.  In his words "Cameron has a weird valve, but it works really well."

About 20 minutes after we spoke to Dr. Ross we saw our baby roll by and got to say hello for literally 5 seconds.

Then we waited for 45 minutes.

Finally we called into the PICU and asked if we were allowed in to see Cameron yet and they said yes.  The team of 10 people were still stabilizing him but they were alright with us staying to observe and ask questions.  Everyone was wonderful.  There was lots going on and Cameron requires VERY close monitoring for the first 24 hours.  I am trying to get the rest that our nurses told me to get, but it is very hard to do that.  I miss my baby and I'm worried about him.

As I'm writing this the PICU just called and told us that Cameron is having some complications.  They are cooling his body, going to use the temporary pace maker, and sedating him again.  Now I can't sleep.  They said I don't need to come in yet, and hopefully I'll get better news when I call them back for an update.

Sorry for the unnerving end to this blog.  Hopefully we will have better news to report in the morning.