Met the surgeon! 12 days left

Ok, so briefly, we met the surgeon today at BCCH. He was such a classy middle aged dude, with classy shiny shoes and plaid pants. Cool plaid, not leprechaun plaid. Anyways, a good sense of humor and a jolly demeanor.

He went over what they will do during surgery, from what he can tell from the reports (we've never met him, nor has he met Piper; he only knows her on paper). Most everything I already understood. There is still a tiny bit of a wild card with the one valve though. It's one of those things that you can't quite know until you're actually looking right at it. He says that in one case, they can fix it easily (or it will fix itself?) and be done with it, or else if it might call for more surgery down the road. I don't really feel like explaining the exact details, but it could go one way or the other, and there is no way to tell until they are done. I am really hoping this is the only surgery Piper has to have...

Anyways, he mentioned lots of other helpful things like how long it will take (approx 5 hours- not as bad as I thought!), and we signed the consent forms. We walked away feeling better about most things. Clarity isn't always great, but I am glad that we can fully understand what will be going on. We really liked him. He said that last year he (not sure if it was him in particular, or the cardiac team) performed heart surgery on about 320 wee kiddies. Ahk. Yeah, he knows what he is doing. He did say that this procedure was fairly straightforward, but as with anything, there are always risks.

He did go into a number of risks (he knows them all, so he mentioned them all), but I am not even going to repeat any. We'll cross that bridge when we get there. Some of the risks ranged from 1 in 1,000,000 to 1 in 100, so it's all over the place. I know Piper is in such good health and is so strong for her condition. I know she will do well.

What can we expect in the first few hours and days after surgery?:

It will be pretty busy around Piper's bed for awhile once she is first out in the ICU, but things should calm down as she is stabilized and everything is checked over. She will most likely still be on the ventilator over night, so we might spend that night away. Luckily for us, a friend of ours who lives 5-7 mins away is out of town for that week, and said we are welcome to steal her bedroom to crash or nap, or especially, for that first night out. That will be really handy, to get away without being too far away.

The surgeon mentioned today that she will probably get taken off the ventilator in the morning, so we'll hopefully be back for that. I am not sure how much of all of that we allowed to see? Anyways, she should be awake that morning and hopefully she will see us and know us and that might help. She will still be on some morphine and another drug that relaxes the muscles so that the heart doesn't have to work hard, and she won't wiggle too much.

Soon enough, she won't need too much, though still be closely monitored, and we'll get closer and closer to taking her home. Both Matt and I have expressed nervousness about taking her home. It might be kinda nice at the hospital having them know everything and take care of her, but at home, it might all be guess work.

Nah, I am sure they will equip us with all we need to know to feel safe and secure.

Ok, that is all for today. It's been a little bit full of information, but all good! It might take a few days to dissect it all. But we are SO glad we took the opportunity to have this meeting early to really process this all. And we got an interesting afternoon to ourselves :) thanks Oma.