surgery #16 1/2 complete

all is well here at children's mercy. owen is resting in his bed watching one of his favorites-elmo in grouchland. and nick is asleep on the oh so wonderful sofa bed....for those of you that have been you know i'm being sarcastic about that. for me i'm preparing for what i think will be a long night to go the long day we had.

owen did absolutely wonderful today!!! he expressed pre-surgery how he didn't want to do the surgery today and wanted me to go to the surgery room with him. which completely broke my heart because i knew i couldn't. he kept saying that he wanted to go to the pizza place that we went to last time after they cancelled his surgery but then when the nurse asked if he was allergic to anything he said pizza. when the time came for them to take him back he was the perfect big boy trooper he always is. he even walked with the nurses instead of being carried. he is such a brave boy!!!!

owen left us at 9:45am. at 10am we got the call down in the surgery waiting from a nurse in the operating room that they were successfully able to get owen put under anesthesia and were starting on the surgery. yay!!! natalie was with us the whole time and just in time for lunch rylina and dom joined us. it was so nice to have people with us to keep us company. at 1:45pm we got the call that owen was in recovery and the dr. would be down to talk to us. dr gatti (which is one of my favorites) let us know that everything went as perfect as it could, he should have little bleeding and may be able to go home tomorrow if he does well over night. owen still had to come out of recovery before we could see him which took 2 more hours because of them being very cautious due to his heart history.

so finally at 3:45pm, 6 hours since he left us, we were able to see him. :-) he cried when he saw us and so did i. he seemed out of it and in a lot of pain. he instantly wanted a drink of water (surprise surprise) and then asked if he could take his water with us to the pizza place. he has been sleeping off and on, sometimes falling asleep mid sentence and saying some of the loopiest things. like "i can't take it anymore" and then i asked "take what owen" and he said "never mind". he is getting a constant drip of pain meds and they can press a button if we feel he needs more.

around 10:15pm he said that he wanted to sit up, so me, nick and the nurse helped him sit up. after about 2 seconds he started crying because of pain which made one of his stitches bleed some. but after all that he had a ton of urine output which is a very good thing because i was starting to worry because he hadn't had any for a few hours which is totally not like him. so i figured out that he wanted to sit up because he was uncomfortable due to his bladder was so full. he hasn't had an issue with output since then. :-)

he has been eating lots of snacks and drinking plenty of water. if he continues to tolerate them over night he will be able to move to more solid foods in the morning. he still keeps asking me when he gets to have dinner and go to the pizza place. :-) i just got up to peek at him and he is sound asleep!!! let's hope that continues for the rest of the night.

i want to thank everyone for all the prayers and good thoughts. nick and i couldn't do this without the support of all our family and friends.

always

am