Post-Surgery Update

Whew, what a day....

Brief recap: Lily's surgery was scheduled for 9:30am. We arrived at the hospital at 8am. Around 9am we learned that they planned to admit Lily to the PICU after surgery and keep her at least overnight. This wasn't really a surprise to us. The problem was, there weren't any available beds in the PICU. So, Lily's surgery had to wait until a bed was available for her. Thus, other surgeries went ahead of her and took a lot longer than originally planned. To make a long story short, she didn't get taken back for her surgery until after 3pm! Lily hadn't eaten since 8pm last night, so as you can imagine she was not a happy camper. The anesthesiologist allowed her to have about 4oz of apple juice around 1pm, which really helped settle her down enough to sleep a bit.

Surgery results: Everything went really, really well. Unfortunately, Lily's ENT was unavailable to do her bronchioscopy because of the scheduling. The whole procedure took about two hours, so around 5pm we got to talk with the surgeon. He told us that he had expected to find that Lily was NOT a candidate for repair; however, he was pleased to be able to give us the news that, despite Lily's age and severe heart defects, she IS a candidate for repair surgery and they are going to schedule it sometime in the next few weeks!!!! PRAISE GOD!!!

Make no mistake, this is a risky surgery. Nothing is set in stone. But without this surgery her life expectancy is only a few decades. In her case, the benefits outweigh the risks. We are praising God tonight because this is a TRUE MIRACLE!!! I don't know yet if it will be open-heart surgery or if it can be repaired with a device through a catheter. Hopefully we will know more tomorrow.

Lily is sharing a room in the PICU with two other very sick babies, and there is just one chair by her crib, so Rob is spending the night with her while I get some sleep back at the hotel. I'll be getting up before the sun to head back to the hospital so Rob can get some sleep. She should be discharged tomorrow, hopefully in the morning but we'll take anytime!!

Thank you for all your prayers...they WORKED! Please continue to pray and I'll continue to update on here. Thank you!!!!