A couple more hours

So it all began, as Tim was wheeled into surgery to repair his aorta around an old graft from a previous surgery. (See history)

He was supposed to get his aorta repaired with synthetic material from where the aorta attaches to the heart through the arch (see attached picture that Tim actually drew) and most likely get a mechanical valve. We were told the surgery would probably last about 7-8 hours.

Tim was wheeled back a little after 7:30 and I left to go take care of the baby. My lovely cousin was willing to drive all the way down from Denver and take care of him. I stayed for an hour or so, and I got back to the hospital around 10. I called the OR room and they said they had just started cutting through the old scar tissue down to the aorta. He was on bypass, most likely, at this point. The OR nurse said she would call in a couple hours and let us know how everything was doing.

12:30 - The nurse called and said everything seemed to be going fine and Tim was doing well. She said she would call in a couple more hours or so and let us know how things were. I went for lunch and came back.

2:30 - The nurse called saying it would be a couple more hours, but things were going well and Tim was doing fine.

4:30 - The nurse called and said it was going to be a couple more hours, it was taking a little longer than they thought but they would call again in a couple more hours. Tim was doing well still, though. We (Tim's parents, my aunt and I) decided to take a break and go get dinner but we would come back around 6:30/7.

6:15 - I was on my way back to the hospital when I got a call from the OR nurse. She said there were some problems and the heart wasn't beating as well as they wanted, so they placed a temporary device to help the heart beat. They said that it would take a couple more hours.

8:45 - The surgeon came out. So after 13 hours, the surgeon came out and explained that the repair of the aorta went fine, and he was actually able to save the aortic valve. The surgeon kept the coronary arteries (which supply the heart with blood), and after they took Tim off of bypass, the left side of his heart, which supplies blood to the entire body, wasn't beating well at all. They had to basically do a coronary artery bypass surgery, where they take veins from other parts of his body to replace the coronary arteries. So they took a portion of vein from his right leg and somewhere else to help supply the heart. The left ventricle still was not beating as well as they would like, so they put in a temporary heart pump. It's called a Tandem heart. This is supposed to be a temporary assistive device to help the heart pump and hopefully recover enough to beat on its own. The surgeon said he had no idea why the left ventricle stopped working, and he thought they would never know. He said Tim was getting ready in the critical care unit and that I probably would be able to see him in 30 minutes.

9:30 - We waited for 30 minutes, and I checked with critical care and they were still getting him situated. I left, because I had to go home for the baby, but the critical care unit would call with any updates.

11 - The critical care nurse called and left a message on my cell.

11:30 - I called the nurse back who said Tim had some irregular rhythms with his heart and that is why it took so long to get him situated in the critical care. They had to shock him but he was stable now.

Today I was thankful for caffeine, People magazine, family and friends.

Psalm of the day - Psalm 28
Applicable verses verse 7 - "The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song."