Today was a long day,
Started with a weigh in at the clinic and then a ECG and Echo at the heart center.
After that we met with the surgeon (Dr. Horne) and his nurse assistant to go over the details of the surgery. Then we met with the anesthesiologist, the cardiology fellow and others.
She had to have bloodwork done, which was awful, she had to give it from her arm and finger and was not happy. Then an x-ray.
We got there around 10 and didn't leave until after 3.
Dr. Horne gave us a diagram of her heart and did his best to explain how he will repair it and all of the ins and outs of the operation. He can't determine exactly what the best course of action is until he sees her heart, but he is hoping to patch up two of the walls and use some sutures to fix the affected valves.
So we take her in tomorrow at 6:15, meet with Dr. Horne around 7. They have a huddle around 7:45 and then come take her in around 8.
The surgery is fairly complex, he said 6 hours for him and then more time for putting her under and hooking her up to all the things and then setting her for transfer to the PICU.
There are quite a few risks as you can imagine. One major one being risk of organ failure. They have to put her on the heart and lung machine and a side effect of pumping blood outside the body and back through is inflammation in the blood. This can cause inflammation throughout her body and organs. There is also a risk of dysrhythmia which would mean she gets a permanent pacemaker.
There was a whole list, including things like blood loss and infection.
There is a 5% chance that she won't make it through the surgery, he said 95% chance of her making through is great but said anxiety about the 5% chance of not making it is understandably overwhelming.
A likely side effect of the surgery is pulmanory hypertension, which would be treated with medication. They would start this as soon as any symptoms arise.
We will get updates every hour or so as the surgery happens, and then will meet with Dr. Horne once Ruby is admitted to PICU. They will have a nurse with her 24/7 while she is there and she will be sedated for the first few days while they monitor her heart to make sure everything worked out fine. There is a single cot in her room and a sleep room for us on the floor so we'll be very close by.
We have to get Ruby up at 3:30am to give her one last feed before the cut off at 4:00am. After that we have some glucose water to give her if she gets hungry. So it is going to be a long night as we try to get some rest.
