The anesthesiologist team came in and wheeled him in his crib to the second floor where the surgeries take place. One of the anesthesiologists asked if we wanted to kiss him and after I did, I started crying. He was then taken away and we ran into his surgeon walking to OR. He asked if we had any questions...I didn't want surgery to be delayed so I just told him, "Good luck and Godspeed." Then we packed up our things from the cardiac transitional care unit to move to the cardiac intensive care unit.
At about 9:30 AM, I got a phone call that the anesthesia team had finished (they had to give him general anesthesia and put in different things like an arterial line) so the operation would begin. I was asked if I needed to ask Dr. Reddy any questions and again, I told them to just get started.
Hayes and I went out to brunch at Plow, a nearby restaurant, to try to not think about our baby being on a bypass machine and getting open heart surgery. It worked to some degree, especially when we were seated at the counter so I saw when my French toast fell on the floor and then when they redid my order and gave it to the wrong person. Thus, I didn't get my food until the third try and wasn't given any sort of reparation, though the other couple got to have an extra free order of food. That got my mind off of things!
Then we went to the CICU room and got to rest a little. A member of the respiratory team came in to start some machines, which I took as a sign that Ripley's surgery was going okay or he wouldn't be preparing the room. Soon after, Ripley's nurse, Phillip, came in and told us that the surgery was going well and it sounded like surgery would conclude soon. A few minutes later (around 2:20 PM), I got a phone call that Ripley was going to be closed up so Dr. Reddy would come meet us to chat.
Dr. Reddy, who had a rare three day weekend from surgery, said that surgery went very well. He said that the pulmonary valve, which had bicuspid leaflets, was able to be spared. This is the ideal situation. The hope is that his valve will grow proportionally with his heart so that he won't need a pulmonary valve replacement, which would mean he'd need replacements multiple times through his life. He was able to just make an incision so that the valve would be widened a little and said there was no leakage. He shaved off the increased muscle tissue under the valve that was causing the tet spells. He patched up the ventricular septal defect with Ripley's own pericardial tissue. He didn't have to do anything to the pulmonary arteries. This was all done through a ventriculotomy, which is going through the ventricle wall. Apparently, this is a little more invasive than going through the atrial wall, but they could not see enough through the latter and had to go through the ventricle. Lastly, because he is still so young, he had a PFO pierced in between his atria. This causes some shunting. Ripley was on the bypass machine for 150 minutes. There were no issues with clotting or blockages after surgery so that is good. He indicated there were no complications.
Ripley came back to CICU and we had to be away at that point while a large team of specialists did evaluations. We did peek in from the hall to see him
when he was about to get his X-Ray. We ended up getting to come into the room around 4 PM. Seeing Ripley with IVs running through both his arms, a breathing tube, chest tubes, leads to monitor his functioning, a pulse on his foot, and a cotton patch over his heart scar was jarring. It wasn't as scary as I expected because I was somewhat prepared though. In fact, the wait during his operation wasn't quite as awful as I anticipated...there were tears, but not as much as I thought I'd have.
It's hard to believe my baby has gone through such an invasive procedure, but I know it was essential for his survival and thrival.
