Surgery day

Nicholas with Clarice and Rudolph, under the spell of silly juice

I got up this morning at 3:45 a.m. to get ready for the surgery today.  It didn't go as smoothly as I would have liked; Nicholas was on to us that something greater was going to happen today than the past appointments he has so bravely gone through.  He was not as compliant as usual; he cried in the shower, he cried getting dressed; he cried in the car.  All the while, Zo and I tried to stay stoic and strong.  He was first getting in to pre-op, and they gave him his "silly juice", which really helped him relax.  Then they took him away.  Then came the tears.

We were taken to a family waiting room, and we then got to meet the infamous Dr. Hanley.  The nurses and fellow doctors we have met all talk about him like he is a god himself.  And they say these things with real conviction, not sarcastically.  So we sat down with him and he started at the beginning, explaining Nic's defect and really helping us understand what we are dealing with.  He was very real and compassionate.  He said that they will go in and carefully monitor his left ventricle until they get the pressure gradient just right and then band the pulmonary artery.  He said that we are doing the right thing. 

He also explained that usually about  75-80% of the time they will have to re-band.  This was kind of news to me; I was under the impression that they only have to reband 20-25% of the time.  So most likely we will have a second open-heart surgery to reband, and then another 6 months of waiting, and then about a year from now, we would do the double switch.  He explained that this is not a guarantee; that it might not even work.  But the alternative is to watch and wait, and at some point in time Nicholas would be in full heart failure and need a heart transplant.  So what is worse???

For now, we will wait as patiently as possible.  I will write more later when we see our boy.