Well Saturday started out like any normal Saturday, well at least normal for right now. That ended abruptly when we got to see Jake and they told us that they had found a problem. Jake was born with a hole in his heart that closed up with the help of medication right after he was born. Over the course of three days the hole had re-opened and was flooding blood throughout Jake's little body and especially throughout his lungs. Before we new it, Jake's lungs were clear filled with fluid and the best solution was immediate heart surgery. I can't tell you how scary it is to be told that your 10 inch long baby with the heart the size of a dime is going in for heart surgery. The doctors assured us that they have performed this surgery many many times but that there are always risks. They told us the risk of death, the risk of infection from the surgery and even the risk of losing Jake's vocal cord strength because of this surgery. Thankfully Rory was there with me and together we decided that we had to go with the surgery, that the risks of him losing his life without the surgery was just too high. Thank goodness my parents had gotten there to meet us for lunch and they were able to take Cayden and Brooklyn home with them for the weekend.
The surgery started and every minute felt like a lifetime. The doctors predicted that it would take about an hour but in the end it was more like 3 hours. They said it took longer because his heart didn't form the same as other hearts had formed and they had to make sure they were clamping the right hole and not the aorta. The problem is that the nurse told us that they were worried about this while they were trying it out. I wish she would have waited until after they had figured it out rather than before. But either way it worked out, Dr. Mitchell clamped the right thing and the surgery was a success. Very scary and frightening but it was a success.
Now we are still waiting for the lungs to clear up. His little lungs are just not strong enough to pump all the fluid out on there own and the fluid is starting to become a problem. He has now started to be on another medication that is supposed to break down the fluid and help it get out of there and we hope by Friday this has worked.
Being in Salem without Rory and Cayden is very weird and sometimes hard but we know it is best for Cayden to keep him in school and it would just be too much driving for Rory to go back and forth. I want to thank all of you who are helping us out at this time. I have always had a hard time asking for help, in fact I really don't like asking for help, but this experience it teaching me that sometimes we can't just do everything on our own, and we need the help of others. I just want everyone to know how much it means to me. Thank you!!!
