Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Surgery: DONE!!

Last picture taken before we handed her off to the surgery nurse.
                                     
First picture taken after surgery.
 
All of her wires and tubes. My precious baby is so sweet. :)
 
Oxygen levels post-surgery: 100%!!!!  :D

The surgery was originally scheduled for today, July 26. I got a call from Dr. Mendloff's nurse (Dr. Mendeloff is Caelyn's surgeon) on July 21 around 4 pm asking if we would mind coming in the next day for pre-op, and doing the surgery on Sunday, July 24. Darren was away for annual training for the National Guard, but was supposed to come home the next day. So I called him to see if he could come home then, and we would leave the next morning for Dallas. He was able to leave a day early, so he came home, we packed, and got a good night's sleep. Woke up around 6:45 Friday morning, fed Caelyn, got ready to go, and left the house by 8:30.
We arrived at Medical City Children's Hospital about 11:30, and started pre-op. They did bloodwork, chest x-rays, and we registered Caelyn. We left by 4:00, and headed to the Ronald McDonald House. It was such a nice place! They were so helpful, and we enjoyed having three meals a day, provided by wonderful volunteers. Saturday, we went to the mall to get Caelyn and special hearts build-a-bear. We named her 'Zipper'. ;) 
The next morning, at 4:00 am, we woke up and got ready for the long day ahead of us. We were at the hospital by 6:00, and Caelyn was taken back for surgery around 7:00. That was the hardest thing I have ever done, handing her over to that nurse. I broke down in tears. My family was very supportive, keeping my spirits up until she was out of surgery, at 12:36 pm. Dr. Mendeloff said her surgery went wonderfully! We briefly saw her sweet little face as they were wheeling her to the Congenital Heart Surgery Unit ICU.
Her recovery has gone very well so far, with no major setbacks. One of her chest tubes is draining a lot, so we may have to put another one in soon, but we will see. Darren has been so amazing, he is such a great daddy to our sweet baby girl.
Hopefully she continues down this path of recovery and we are home very soon. Thank you to everyone who has prayed for her, we very much appreciate every single prayer!  

1 comment:

  1. Stopping by from the FB WTE group...glad to see Caelyn is doing well. I can tell she is a strong little baby girl with wonderful parents. I'm sending good thoughts for a continued successful recovery!

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