Pre op

Eric and I and Lila Grace went for Pre op today. I personally thought it was really helpful and relieved a lot of anxiety, E is still a little nervous. I feel much better about the surgery and recovery and confident we have not only one of the best congenital heart defect surgeons, but also a very competent team of professionals that deal with this everyday. The nurse gave us the scoop on the surgeon, Dr. Mendeloff trained with one of the "top tiered" surgeons in the world (Iguess there's only 5-10 of those) and then worked for him and now works independently...we are so fortunate!!! We did consult with him and he was very thorough in his description of the surgery, answered all our questions and a very nice guy. He said he does 400-500 congenital heart defect surgeries per year, but about 15 TAPVR repairs. We seriously got information overload today, but here are some of the main details.

-surgery is at 6 am on Monday
-surgery will last roughly 6 hours
-Lila Grace will spend the first night in ICU (while on the ventilator)
-when she's ready (probably day 2) they will take her off the vent and move us to a room on a floor with a round the clock Cardiologist
-she will be here 2-3 days, hopefully getting stronger every day
-then they will move us to a recovery room, where she should be almost completely recovered, but will be monitored for a couple more days
-hospital stay could range from 5-9 days, all depending on how fast she recovers
-Once home she will see the cardiologist in 10-14 days. She then can resume normal activity and is good to go!!!

Thank you all for your constant thoughts and prayers. Keep them up as Monday will probably be our hardest day and then it should be uphill from there!