Heading Home!

Man, that was quick!  after being in the hospital for a month last time, leaving within 12 hours feels almost criminal!  Everything went really well today. They did find narrowing in his shunt but put him on some oxygen instead of moving up the surgery date. So as long as he continues to do well on the oxygen, his surgery will be feb 9th.

We have a little tank in a shoulder bag to take him home and they'll bring some tanks to the house later today.  He met all of the qualificatins to be able to go home early of interacting, eating, and peeing. We are grateful to head home so quick but it has been a long day for all of us! We were trying to get him to eat his differeny food options as late as he could so his tummy would feel full longer. Formula 6 hours before, breastmilk 4 hours and pedialyte 2 hours.  Since we had to be there at 6am with th procedure at 8, this led to getting up sveral times overnight and a very tired family! (Including landon). Thanks again for your praying and support today. 

Sleeping Peacefully

We got to come see him a while ago and he has been eating (starting with pedialyte to see how his tummy would tolerate it) and hanging out and then fell asleep.

The doctor showed us that there is considerable narrowing in his shunt (it was put in at 3.5 mm and is measuring 2.2 mm in places now) - he actually showed us a few of the pictures they took which are really interesting. We're not sure yet if his surgery date will be moved up- there are rumors that the surgeon said he would leave it scheduled for Feb 9th but we haven't heard that from him yet. As long as he eats well (which he has done already) and oxygen saturation levels look good we will go home today. During the cath they tested him on oxygen and his flow looked better with it so we will probably take him home on oxygen until the next surgery. He is still on it now at a little higher flow than we'll use at home but he is still coming out of anesthesia so this is expected. Overall we're all doing well- just tired!

Almost Done!

I just got an update that they just have a few more pictures to take and then they will be done with the cath. Landon has done really well and they haven't done any interventions (ballooning, stints, etc) so that is good news. We'll have to wait and see if what they found will affect his current sugery date at all. We're still expecting to stay overnight but it's possible he could go home today- we'll wait and see what they say.

Farewell Kisses

They took him back just a few minutes ago after we had a chance to kiss him good luck. He's been very happy this morning and all the nurses are raving about how cute he is. We tend to agree! They are supposed to update us every hour and he is scheduled for 3 hours but could easily be longer or shorter than that. Now we just wait! Thanks for your prayers!

Happy Boy in Pre-Op!

We're checked in and Landon is chilling in pre-op right now and just playing with some toys (no monitors yet!) We should talk to the cardiologist soon and he's still scheduled to start at 8.

Catheterization moved up

Landon's sats (blood oxygen saturations) have taken a little bit of a dip this week so we went it to the cardiologist yesterday for an echo. His sats were a little better but the echo showed some narrowing in the shunt that they put in during the first surgery. This narrowing restricts some of the blood flow to the shunt and his lungs which has caused his sats to go down.

They recommended getting the cath done this week if possible and denver children's was able to schedule him for Friday at 8am. We have to check in at the hospital at 6am so we'll stay up in denver tonight so we can be close by. He will probably be in the hospital overnight on Friday and then we should be home on Saturday. If you want to find out more about what a catheterization is, you can do so here. We'll post a few updates over the next few days so stay tuned for details.

Quick Update - Surgery Scheduled for February 9th

Landon is going to have his catheterization (basically an internal x-ray) on January 16th (an unpleasant procedure I am told) and his pre-op will be February 8th and surgery on February 9th.  It is nice knowing this, but scary to think how soon we will be sweating bullets all over again.

We are hopeful there will be less complications after the surgery this time and that he will recover faster.  We take nothing for granted though.  There is a chance he could be on oxygen following this procedure or he could be doing better than he is now.  The human body is very unpredictable.  These surgeries are an  inexact science at best .  Not to fault the process or doctors, but the heart at this age is very small.

Pray that we can have peace in the lead time and through the whole process again.  It will be harder this time even if it is easier for Landon.  We have grown quite fond of the little guy to say the least!  More to come in a post detailing the procedure and what it will mean for Landon's anticipated progress following it.

Gary