Deanscrews biggest hurdle yet.

So if you haven't heard by now, Kai Boy had a Congenital Heart Condition that we knew eventually would need to be dealt with. It is a PDA which is a valve that is to have closed at birth. Sometimes they take longer to close so we waited it out. Well Kai's never closed and after going to 3 different Cardiologist it turns out he had a very large PDA as appose to a small to moderate that was originally diagnosed. This means his heart was working twice as hard to pump blood through his body. Also it meant his metabolism was twice as fast and he was having a hard time gaining weight. At the last cardio appt. they also detected a Coarctation of the Aorta, meaning an obstruction causing the blood flow to his legs to be hindered.

So Thursday July 9th was the big day. We went to the hospital on the 8th for pre-op blood work and spoke to a very uneducated nurses practitioner who freaked us out by saying Kai would be put on a bypass machine during the Coarctation procedure. It turns out she had no idea what she was talking about. Why is it that people can't just simply say "I don't know" when asked something they have no business talking about? It is beyond me. Anyways- not only did that freak us out the day before his surgery, but Daila also started up with the bloody diapers again while we were at the hospital. Maybe it was her nervousness for what Kai was about to endure, but sure enough while Kai and daddy were in the chest x-ray room I took Daila to change her diaper and it was blood again (this happened about 6 weeks ago) so for the last 2 hours of the day before Kai's surgery we spent trying to get a hold of our pediatrician re: Daila's issue, but also trying to process all of this new information about Kai (that turned out to not be true) so needless to say, we were stressed. We can officially say that so far July 8th was our least favorite day of parenting so far! We eventually spoke to the pediatrician and he at least made us feel comfortable in the fact that Daila would be okay. That was really important because we didn't plan to bring her with us to the hospital during Kai's surgery because we didn't want to expose her to any random germs that we didn't need to.

So we headed to the hospital at 5:00 a.m. on Thursday a.m., Kai's surgery was the first one of the day. We held it together pretty good, and Kai was his usual charming self with the dimples that makes your heart melt. This was the hardest part, because he was all happy and playful and had no idea what was about to happen. Handing him over to the nurse to get prepped for surgery was by far the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. I really hope we don't have to do anything like that again or anytime soon at least. Billy and I were pretty much in a fog after that, we went down to the cafeteria and had eggs and french toast, something I actually can barely remember the details of. Then we went to the room we were told to wait in and sat there to wait it out. Of course nothing is complete without some harassment by someone trying to over-flex their authority... Billy was reprimanded by an "almighty" security guard for putting his feet on a chair to try and stretch out and get comfortable enough to wait for the news. Mind you it's 7:30 a.m. and we were the only people in the waiting room. Never fails. So finally the surgeon came out to tell us Kai's surgery went extremely well in the fact they closed the PDA and the Coarctation was not severe enough to ever effect him, so they didn't have to manipulate the Aorta. He did though explain that the PDA was so large that instead of using the standard 1 clip to close it off, they used 2 and a silk suture to close it.

We made our way up to the ICU where we had previously been told Kai would spend the rest of his time. When we first saw him he was sleeping. Everyone told us to be prepared for this moment because they said you usually fall apart seeing your baby hooked up to all of the machines. Well, maybe this was the only redeeming aspect to all of the different injuries and surgeries Billy and I have had combined, but we were just so happy to see him we didn't even care about the machines. Heck, I was glad to know there was something hooked up to everything letting us know he was A-OK! So we spent the next several hours comforting Kai as he woke and worked himself through the miserable process of coming out of anesthetic. This was sad to watch because he was so disoriented and his voice was hoarse from the breathing tube. So when he did cry it was extra pitiful.

By the time evening rolled around Kai was pretty exhausted. Auntie Pamela came up to visit and she brought Kai a cute little teddy bear to keep him company. Kai was asleep so she took us to dinner to try and get our mind off of things. It was a nice break, but of course I ended up calling the hospital halfway through to check Kai's status because I couldn't bear the thought of his pitiful little hoarse cry if he didn't have mom or dad there to comfort him. The nurse assured us he had been sleeping the whole time and not to worry. So we finished our dinner and went back and spent a few groggy moments with our little champ before he fell asleep for the night. The nurses had warned us that the following day would be the worst so we were prepared for anything.

Well, contrary to much speculation, we woke this morning to a happy, energetic little monkey who was too pre-occupied with trying to stand up in his crib to care that he had heart surgery just yesterday! It was amazing. We were also told he would probably instictually not use his left arm because the surgery was done through his left shoulder blade and his ribs had to be separated to access his heart, but sure enough he was using it to pull all of his weight up. So in other words he's doing extremely well. The docs did their rounds this morning and he was discharged without question.

We left the hospital and went to Sallies house where Daila had spent the last day. This was the first time Daila and Kai had been separated and you could tell they missed each other. They played and babbled like they were catching up on old times. The best moment was when we finally got home and Daila stole Kai's binky like she likes to do. Well, Kai cried for a second like usual, but this time he swiped hers from her mouth in retaliation! We waited for Daila to get all upset, but instead she broke out in a huge giggle and kept doing it as we all started laughing with her. It was like she wasn't even mad, she was just so excited that Kai had finally figured out her game. It was clearly the most uniting moment we've had with the four of us so far. We almost got tears thinking about this and how this was just the first of many roads we will travel together as a family.