Home and happy!

Justin finally had his PDA closure Thursday. This is a picture of the always happy little guy right before the surgery.  He was oblivious to the stress that Mom and Dad were feeling. 

As they took him from us and explained all the terrible things that could go wrong, (because they have to) they also warned us that it could take up to 4 hours.  We were given a pager and began to walk the halls.  Finally after pacing for a good 45 minutes, we decided to get a coke and find a place to sit and read to get our minds off of the time.  We figured we had a long wait ahead of us. Right as we found a spot and began reading, our pager went off!  Instantly we thought something went wrong!  It had only been 1 hour and 10 minutes!  We rushed back to see the sweet nurse greet us with a smile! "He's all done!  It went very smooth!"  As they rolled him out I had to hold back the tears.  He was so out of it, but I was also very glad to have this done and over with.  The surgeon pulled us aside while they took him to the first recovery room.  He was extremely happy with his heart! Luckily the closure was quite small, so that should heal up really well.  They also did some exploratory stuff while they were in there and his heart is functioning beautifully! We are so thankful! 

Only one parent was allowed back in the first recovery room.  Of course Tyler didn't have a say!  I was up and out! Tyler was only out of the loop for 20 minutes.  They put us in an overnight recovery room.  Since the procedure was done through his groin, we had to make sure he didn't move his leg for 6 hours to prevent any blood loss.  We felt awful because we couldn't hold him.  All we could do was stand there and hold his leg down as he looked up at us.  

All he could do was use his little arms to touch us.  I spent most of the time leaning over so I could kiss his cute fingers.  They gave him atropine before surgery. Down syndrome patients heart rates tend to drop during surgery, so this is used to maintain proper heart function and increase his heart rate.  It also dilates the pupils and causes major flushing of the face after surgery!  He was such a trooper and never needed pain medicine!  After the six hours was up, they had to x-ray his chest to make sure the coil (used to close the PDA) didn't move.  Luckily it didn't.  Next thing we know they said we were going to be discharged!  He did so amazingly well they didn't see a need for him to stay over night!   The girls were so sweet (with Grandmas help of course) to get his room all decorated for his homecoming!  They were so relieved to see him!

We want to thank everyone for their prayers! We are so happy to have such a healthy little boy!