Our Lil' Hero: Post Op Day 10

Friday, January 31, 2014

Post Op Day 10

Today was filled with more smiles from Mason. He still isn't near back to his personality but I will take the smiles I can get. He started this morning with 7 meds and kept them all down, thank goodness! He had a chest xray, got dressed and then we went to the playroom. After the playroom I made special arrangements to go to the parent resource center to go see one of the therapy dogs before it went to visit one of the outpatient floors here. Mason was so happy to see a dog and to talk about his dog. He was so happy that he actually let me take a picture of him willingly! After that we had to wait around because Mason was scheduled for an echo but we didn't have a time of when. So he played a little more in the play room and then started to get really tired. He came back to his room ate a little more than he did yesterday then fell asleep. Of course right after he fell asleep echo showed up. They brought a portable echo so he didn't have to go to the echo lab and I was sure it was going to be a screaming fight. I am thankful for the tender mercy that Mason stayed asleep the whole entire time! No sedation medicine just a nap, it was amazingly perfect. It was so great to see his full heart pumping strong on the screen. I was a little nervous to get the results from it and didn't expect to hear until Monday about them but I got an email from his cardiologist who is out sick and everything looked great! He does have some pulmonary narrowing but she said it isn't an immediate worry AT ALL. She also said that her and Dr. Emani still want Mason to have a cath in a few months(right around the time we would go back to Utah). I am hoping that the "few months" was meant to say a few weeks but I guess I will find out more when she is back on Monday. I am so relieved knowing that the conversion worked and that Mason's full heart is confirmed a success in his post op echo. Although we are looking at another 6 days in the hospital, I couldn't feel more blessed. Blessed to have an uneventful recovery, blessed to have amazing doctors, blessed for so many things, but most importantly blessed that Mason has a full functioning heart.

Mason happy to be with Cody the dog

Mason, Jakari, and Maddox playing trains together in the play room

Cruisin' the halls before his friend Jakari got discharged

The amazing sleeping echo with great results

1 comment:

Cheri J. Crane said...: Wow!!! Wonderful news!!! So glad the echo looked as good as it did. Truly a miraculous procedure! =) And it was wonderful to see Mason smiling again. Our prayers continue to be with you all.; February 1, 2014 at 8:26 AM

Post a Comment

A little about Mason

This is a journey through Hypoplasic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS). Mason was born on October 1, 2010 as what we thought was a healthy normal baby boy. At 3 weeks old we found out when he was life flighted to Primary Children's Medical Center that he was born with an Unbalanced AV Canal Defect that caused him to have Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome. He also was diagnosed with 2 Large ASD's a VSD, a CoArch of the Aorta, and a small leaky Mitral Valve. He had his first open heart surgery, the Norwood, in the end of October 2010. After surgery his chest was left open and they surgically closed it a few days later after the swelling went down. He had his second open heart surgery, the Glenn, in January 2011. He did great with recovery and got discharged 1 week later. We had him home for 1 day then he was rushed back to the hospital where they found he had a sternal infection and had to open him back up and wash out all the infection and he had a picc line placed for 6 weeks for antibiotics. He had a couple of heart caths during that time, and echo every 3-6 months, and eye surgery.
In February 2013 we sent his records to Boston to explore different surgical options for him. We found out he was a candidate for a surgery called the Staged Left Ventricle Recruitment to the BiVent. With this surgery it would grow his left ventricle to normal size and then give him normal circulation to hopefully avoid him having to have a heart transplant. (if we didn't go this route we have been told with his anatomy he would need a transplant in his teens). With the help of friends, family, and strangers we went to Boston where he had the first of hopefully only 2 surgeries. He had his 3rd open heart surgery in June and right now his heart is growing and conditioning to be able to handle the load of the work that a normal heart does. He is due to have his 4th open heart surgery in the first of 2014.