Monday, October 31, 2005

The Big Day




The big day has almost arrived. Emma’s heart surgery is scheduled for 7:30 tomorrow morning. Today at 4:30 we are going to the operating room to have her trach temporarily removed until after the heart surgery. She will have a normal breathing tube put back in for the surgery. The trach was too close to where they needed to cut her open for the heart surgery. They decided to take the trach out the day before the surgery just to make sure that she is completely stable before putting her on the heart lung bypass machine. As of right now, we are supposed to be at the hospital tomorrow morning at 6:00. At 7:00 the anesthesiologist will get her ready and then at 7:30 the surgery begins. The surgery should take about 3 hours and there is a 97% chance of survival for a baby her size. They will cut open her chest and remove her heart to repair the hole. After the surgery, she should not require any additional surgery for her hole. There is a 1 and 30 chance that she could require a pace maker after the surgery, but it will take 7 to 10 days to determine if she needs it. Her surgeon Dr. Gates is confident that she will do fine. On Saturday we spoke to her cardiologist Dr. Berdjis and he told us that Emma told him that she was ready. There are always risks with any surgery, but we are confident that God will bring her through this. We are still nervous and anxious for it to be over. Please be praying for Emma and for us tomorrow. It will be a long morning of waiting. I will try to send out an update tomorrow evening with the results.

Thank you,

Mark, Alissa, and Emma

1 comment:

Moe said...

We are praying hard! I posted it on my blog too. God's Blessings on your family.