Chicks dig scars!

We made it through so far. I don't know where to begin. The morning started early, Chelsea and I were up at 0445 and at the hospital about 1 hour later. Owen had a good night we were told and he was awake this morning when we got here. It was nice to see his eyes before this whole thing started. The anesthesia team showed up at about 0730 and it was time to go. Chelsea and I were somehow very calm through the night and this morning with only minor crying episodes. We were able to get to go with him the surgery waiting area and give him a kiss before he had to go. Chelsea and I knew that we could not sit here and wait or we would go crazy but we were both exhausted. We decided after breakfast and hot drinks at starbucks we would take a 15 min power nap in the car (its never hot down here so you can do that). After the attempted nap we were on our way a few blocks down the road to the Golden Gate park. We spent some time in the Academy of science and then it was time for lunch. We had a good lunch and were expecting a phone call soon which we got! He was out of surgery and back to his room. (I guess that he got to his room around 12 but we didn't hear from the team until 1245.)

When arriving back to his room he had a huge entourage of about 15 people. He had great saturation's while in the OR in the 90's but he was having an episode down into the 40's and they were trying to figure out what was going on. They did an immediate Echo to make sure the shunt did not close off and they did not need to rush him back to surgery. The echo was fine and the shunt was working well. They then started him back on nitric oxide which helped a lot. His sats began to rise to much more acceptable level. No one was really talking to us or even looking at us, we were just sitting there trying not to get in the way or freak out too much. It was Drama but thank goodness his sats went back up.

I will go into the medical story now. Owen had a shunt placed like we were told. The shunt connects the aorta to the pulmonary artery to get more blood flow to the lungs. This was done in great fashion. Upon seeing Owen he looked much better than I thought he was going to. Owen has 3 peripheral IV's and and the picc line as well now. He has 3 chest tubes in now that drain fluid from his chest cavity.(these will be removed with time) Owen also came back with pacer wires in his chest. When they do these type of surgeries they the put pacer wires in place just in case Owen's Hr slows to an unacceptable level these wires would allow them tho shock his heart.They had to replace an arterial line that Owen managed to pull out. He continues to be intubated and they plan to keep him very sedated through the weekend. He has about a 3-4 inch incision going down his chest. He had to be put on Bypass during surgery. This machine allows the heart to be stopped while working on it and pumps the bodies blood for it. That's a lot for anyone, let alone a 4 week old!

Owen is doing good at this time. He looks even bigger than normal because he has more fluid and air just like anyone after surgery. His saturation's are in the 90's for now. That is a little higher than they want it to be at this time but it is nice to see for once. He is stable and hopefully continues to be this way. They say that the next 24-48 hrs are very critical and that kids sometime have a dip 12-24 hours after surgery so we are nowhere close to being out of the woods yet. We thank you all for the support leading up to this and are just amazed of our great of family and friends. I will keep you all posted.
-Chris