11/5/13

Today is surgery day!  Scheduled first at 8:00, then last night switched to 10, and then as I was getting on the road at 7:00, received a message that she was bumped to the first case today, and back on at 8:00.  Good thing Michele was there to escort her; but I was able to see her as well.  She was in good spirits, joking with the surgeon and anesthesiologist even before they gave her the happy medicines.  The doctors say the procedure is anywhere between 2 and 4 hours depending on the size of her veins and the complexity of the vein structures.

Thank you folks for all your thoughts and prayers.

Alexandra has such a wonderfully different way of seeing things!  The other day she and I were walking from Nicole's room in the Cardiac ICU to the cafeteria and she suddenly said: "Daddy, I just figured it out!  The rooms have a lot of windows so the nurses and doctors can look in to take care of the patients.  There are even windows at where the nurse sits to see both rooms. And a window between the rooms. And the whole front has a sliding glass door to see in.  That's why they call it the 'I See You' (ICU) right?"  You know she is really right; that's the point of their design of the unit and rooms, after all.

One more hurdle successfully navigated.  Nicole went in for surgery around 8:00, and came into recovery shortly after noon.  The surgeon said that the process went well, but spent some extra time working on the placement of the leads in her heart to ensure they both provided good acquisition of the electrical signals as well as good placement for both the pacing and defibrillating functions of the device.  In the end he was very happy with the placement and input levels.  While in the OR they induced ventricular tachycardia and make sure the device delivered the shock it was supposed to, and all went as planned.

Now it is a time to wait, let her get through the post-op pain, track her vitals.  Tomorrow they will do some more xrays to make sure placement has not shifted and will test the device.  Once we sail through those hurdles, then it's off to home for recovery...