9.5 hours of surgery later....

Well... as we all knew Yale is a very strong surviver! Today was long to say the least, but in the end, we've got good news...

After speaking with Dr C Calderone, Yale's surgeon, he was hoping once again to tell us that everything went smoothly, however there were a few bumps along the way. All of these "bumps" are normal and can arrise in any surgery, but this is the gist of his summary of the surgery.

-Yale had some bleeding issues during his surgery, and required quite a few transfusions. Again, not unexpected, but not great.

-He noticed that the coronaries (the veins the supply blood to the heart muscle) where they are supplied from the aorta were small. He said it was good that he had is surgery when he did as it was just a disaster waiting to happen. He said that this, in connection with his restriced PDA ,were probably the cause for his poor funtion and failure when He was flown to Sick Kids

-Yale was on bypass for about 5 hours. His heart has been slow to recoup, and he will likely be needing some assistance with medication to get it up to snuff. He did however notice that all his numbers were steadily getting better over the 5 hours he was off of bypass and therefore thought it was safe to go ahead and close his chest.

-We won't know until Yale is well on the road to recovery whether there was any more neurological damage. the risk is great considering his past...but only time will tell.

Basically, other than what to expect over the nex few days-weeks, thats about it. Now its just the wait. the next 48 hours will prove if there will be any more major setbacks. So keep you're prayers and positive thoughts coming.

Also please please please Pray for little Megan Tremblay. She was supposed to have her surgery today but it was postponed until tomorrow. We spent pre-op chit chatting with them, and as this will be Megan's first surgery, (and a big one at that) they will need lots of prayers. We all know they work!

So in the meantime we only spent a few minutes with Yale once he was in the CICU. We're exhausted, and know full well we can trust the nurses and doctors...so we'll be taking advantage and geting some much needed rest (the last few days have been pretty sleepless to say the least) Anyhoo... I snapped some pictures of Yale this morning while waiting to be taken down for surgery and him in recovery. (I think it was pretty fitting that the room we were assigned before surgery was number 7....lucky?)I was expecting much worse when we finally got to see him, but was pleasantly surprised to see the full amount of swelling and bruising has yet to set in! Thank you everyone!