post op

The surgery took about 5 hours. The nurse working with Dr.Manning came out to give us updates every hour. We met with the doctor afterwards and he said everything went well. The hole in Gabe's heart was pretty massive. He was able to patch it up very easily. The valves were a little more difficult to repair and he had to go back and add another 2 stitches due to some initial leaking, but he was happy with the result. He actually came in the room smiling which is always a good sign. They will be keeping Gabe sedated till tomorrow afternoon to give him some time to heal and recover. They will try to wake him up some tomorrow and do some ventilator tests to see if they can extubate tomorrow afternoon. His blood pressure is a little high now and they are giving him so medication for it. So far, no major curve balls have been thrown. He has his PICC line, arterial line, peripheral IV, brain oxygen monitor, intubation line, chest tube, direct heart lines, and catheter. He also has pacemaker wires in place just in case, but his heart has been pacing well on its own so far. The next 2 days will be pretty critical. We should be able to tell by early next week any lung or trachea issues that are leftover if there are any low oxygen levels or work of breathing.

Special thanks to Kelly for organizing Gabe's Buddy Walk and bringing us cookies from Max and Erma's today. Go Team Cash!