Big news - Tomorrow is the big day! 6 Days Old

We had a fairly unsettled morning, followed by an exciting afternoon.

But first, the big news: Pat is going in for his surgery at 8 AM tomorrow morning. The surgery will last 3 - 5 hours (or possibly longer), and then he will be in essentially a drug-induced coma for, in the surgeon's words, "several days". He said not less than two and very unlikely to be more than 7. He told us that the surgery was well understood, and he thought the worst case was that he would come out on ECMO , essentially a heart-lung machine.

We are both terrified and very excited. Our baby is a strong little guy, and we are hopeful that this is the first successful step in giving him the chance for a normal life.

So, what is ECMO? It stands for "extracorporeal membrane oxygenation" (Duh). It is apparently a device that both circulates and oxygenates blood.

OK, back to the narrative. I went downstairs to see Pat after we ate breakfast at the Hospital, only to discover that he wasn't in the same room. He had been moved to a room in the CICU (From the NICU) overnight. (What is the CICU and NICU? NICU is the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, for newborns. The CICU is the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit, for cardiac patients. Pat qualifies for both.) Apparently, the room he was in was a single room, and they had to make room for a baby that needed isolation. The nearest ICU room available was a CICU room just around the corner, with space for two patients. There is another child in the other half of the room (separated by a curtain) but we don't know much about her.

When I found the room Pat was in, a nurse was doing a sterile procedure and I couldn't go in. She was adding another PICC line, because the one Pat had was beginning to show signs of a reaction. So I had to go away for an hour or so. When we returned, it was to learn that the installation didn't work.

At the rounds, we heard the team go back and forth on whether or not it would be necessary to put in another PICC line, or another IV line, given that he would likely have his surgery tomorrow. You can imagine that our ears picked up at that comment. Someone had mentioned something like that a little earlier, but we've been hearing so many things I didn't really believe it. After rounds, one of the cardiology doctors came back and told us that he was indeed going in tomorrow, and the surgeon would likely come talk to us later in the afternoon.

In the meantime, I got another chance to hold Pat. For 90 minutes I got to hold him in my arms. It's amazing that doing nothing but holding a little baby in my arms could keep me so utterly enthralled so long. Heck, I get bored and have trouble keeping my attention on a 30-second TV commercial, much less a passive little sack of protoplasm for 90 minutes. A very cute, sweet, adorable, fascinating, and enchanting sack of protoplasm. I was sad when it ended.

Pui and I waited for the surgeon to come, until at last Pui could handle it no longer and left for the bathroom. She was gone barely 60 seconds when Dr. Cohen came by. Naturally. He was very nice and waited around for Pui to return, at which point he talked to us about the surgery, the timing, probable outcomes, where we should wait, etc. He answered our questions, and then we signed the release forms. Tomorrow at 8 AM he goes into OR. I wonder how much sleep we'll get tonight. "If" might be more accurate than "How much".

Before we met with the surgeon but after we learned he would be going in to the OR tomorrow, we (That is, Pui) realized that we had an appointment with the US Government tomorrow, so Pui's biometrics could be measured. We have three appointments for the same thing - one tomorrow, one 10 days later, and another 7 days after that. We had all three appointment notices, plus the surgical release. We called the Government help line to ask about the discrepancy, and their reply was to go to the first appointment but bring all three appointment notices. My Mom had the idea of calling Pat's Aunt Tammy (Tammy Mullarky) as probably the best person we could ask to help us out. We both agreed, and Mom called her while Pui and I waited for the surgeon. After we finished that, I talked to Tammy and was delighted to learn she was willing to help out. She came over to the hospital to collect our documents, and got to meet little Pat. He was in a particularly cute position - on his tummy with his little butt in the air. We are so thankful that we have so many people willing to help us out. If Tammy had been out of town, there are probably a dozen other people we could ask. Fortunately, we didn't have to. It's very reassuring to have Aunt Tammy on the case - she will do a great job for us, guaranteed.