Pre-Op Updates

Today we had all of Blake's pre-op appointments which included an EKG, more blood pressures, measuring his pulse oxygen levels, chest x-rays, drawing blood, then meeting with cardiology, surgical nurses, anesthesia, social work, child life, and finally scheduling coordinators.

It was a very long and difficult day at the hospital. Being there three days in a row with over a dozen doctors and nurses poking, prodding, and asking questions started to wear on Blake's last nerve today, not to mention there was a lot of waiting around and our distraction tactics he was starting to catch on to, luckily Bryan is like a big kid and is great at distracting and I found a pack of cherry Lifesavers in my purse - these little jewels are miraculous bribery tools!

We had a couple of low points today also. When they had to draw blood Blake threw a bloody fit and jerked his arm which made them miss the vein and then they were digging around in his arm searching for it (which didn't improve the situation). They made a fresh start with the other arm and I was restraining him with my whole body while Bryan was holding his arm as stiff as possible. By the end of it, his tortured screaming made me sick to my stomach and I was a mess. Blake earned an ice cream sandwich for being so brave.

Finally after all of the testing, they took a look in his ears and saw some redness and fluid and were concerned he might have an ear infection so we had to wait for his white blood cell count to come back - which meant if his levels were down we might have to postpone surgery. His counts came back normal, and they decided to proceed as normal (unless of course he spikes a fever tonight).

All that to say, we were ready to get out of there when we did. We went to Nonni and Poppi's (Tiffany's parents) house to go swimming and blow off some steam, and it was nice to hang out with Mason and let Blake feel like a normal kid. Oh, and we made sure to use a generous dose of Swimmer's Ear tonight!

So, for tomorrow, we are first case, which means we arrive at the hospital at 6 AM, we go back for more testing and questions around 7 AM, and they expect Blake will go into anesthesia at 8 AM. They predict they will spend the first hour getting all his lines in and getting him stabilized, and then the next 3-4 hours cutting through his chest bone and scar tissue (from previous surgeries). Estimation is around noon or 1 PM he will go on the heart-lung bypass machine and the actual Fontan procedure will take approximately an hour. Finally it will probably take another hour to close the incisions and reassemble his chest plate, which would put him in the Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit (CVICU) around 3 PM. Of course this is all just estimation; every case is different. We will be sure to update the blog tomorrow as we hear from the surgical nurses (they update us approximately every hour).

Thank you for all of your prayers and positive thoughts. Blake is so incredibly lucky to have such amazing doctors and nurses, and you all as his support system.