Maddie’s surgery went very well and everything was as expected.  The surgery team put her down and immediately went to work hooking up the bypass machine, repairing the hole with a plug of cow heart tissue, and stitching her back up.  The entire surgery went about 2 hours and we spent the time with Val, our pastor’s wife, in the waiting area.  Dr. Callazo came out and reported to us that the surgery went as expected and that everything looked ok.

We were overjoyed and went into the room to check on her as soon as they let us.  Since she was in the PICU, we had to scrub up to our elbows like surgeons.  As part of most heart surgeries (as a precaution), there are pacemaker wires leading from the heart to an external pacemaker, which is about the size of a brick.  The pacemaker was running full blast when we got there and she was on a breathing tube as well as blood pressure medication (and pain meds of course).  One worrying sign was that conduction from the top of the heart to the bottom was not very good, which is why the pacemaker was running.

We spent some time with her and went home for the night since she was so heavily sedated.  Jen called multiple times that night to check on her.  The nurses reported that she was stable.

The next morning we arrived and she was still on the pacemaker, but they had lowered her breathing tube O2 flow and she was tolerating it, which was a good sign.  However, she was also acidotic, so the nurses attending her worked tirelessly to rebalance her PH, monitor her blood-gas metrics, and balance her pain medicine with her wakefulness.  It was a long day and she seemed to be a bit loopy – often rolling her eyes up into her head and overall not being very responsive.  The doctors weren’t sure if it was related to the pain medication or if it was something else.

Her stats and vitals all looked good, so we prayed and hoped for the best.