Surgery Info

We arrived at Children's at 3:50 for our 4:30 appointment. Chris wanted to get there early because he wasn't sure about how traffic would be. We checked in and waited for the doctor to see us. Around 4:15 the nurse came to us and said that the doctor was still in surgery and it would be another hour until he could meet with us. I thought, here we go again with the waiting and waiting. We went into a back room and filled out some paper work as we waited. Close to when the doctor was suppose to come the nurse came in and said that surgery was going to take two to three more hours and that he would not be able to meet with us today. So as you can, imagine two days in a row of cancellations, I got pissed. I asked the nurse if there was anyway anybody could give us any information about the surgery or even the freaking date. She said she would get the papers and see what she could find out. A half hour later she walked in with papers in tow and sat down with as much information as she could give us. We found out that surgery will take place Friday, July 17, and it will last on average 6 to 8 hours but probably longer. They are going to remove the part of the aortic root that is enlarged. She was not sure if they were going to replace the removed part or just connect the two ends together. She did not have any information about how the rip in the patch is going to be fixed or if it will even be during that surgery. I pray that they can do it all at the same time. Chris will be in the ICU over night and in the hospital for a few more days after that. She is not sure how long he will be there because it all depends on each person and how they recover. Chris will be out of work for about 6 weeks and there will be rehabilitation exercises and lots of appointments that we will have to do during those six weeks. She said that when he is in surgery he will be on a heart bypass machine and have several IVs and tubes when he comes out that need to stay in for a couple of days. We will be meeting with the surgeon soon to get the exact details and how the patch is going to be fixed. I'm glad that we at least got a date today and know a little bit of how things are going to work for the surgery. It is going to be the longest/scariest day of my life and I hope and pray that everything will be ok and that he has a great recovery process. As soon as I find out more information I will post what we know. Please keep us in your prayers. This is going to be a long summer.