Surgery

What a day! Logan left us at 9 for surgery and we tried to stay busy as long as we could but ended up in the waiting room at 10:45. It seemed like an eternity, but the longer we stayed the more we didn't want to leave incase the doctor came up. Finally, at 12:30 the surgeon appeared and gave us a thumbs up then called us outside. He explained that everything went exactly as expected and now his body just had to get used to a new way of pumping and circulating blood. He said that his pulmonary arteries were angry and had to adjust. He explained that they left his chest open to allow for swelling, which we knew was a posibility. There is a piece of plastic holding his ribs apart and a dressing over his heart.

Everything is up to Logan now.

What a relief! We were excited and happy, like a huge weight was lifted. They brought him by us so we could give him a kiss and then wheeled him back to his room to get him all transferred over. We had to wait a while before we could go see him. More waiting...

It took about an hour and a half before we could go see him. When we did the nurses explained to us what all of his tubes and medications were. It was pretty overwhelming. He gained 12 different medications and fluids just to get rid of one medication. It was hard to see him. He is sedated and paralyzed with tubes and wires and machines surrounding him. We just stood together in silence and stared at him for what seemed like forever. It was so surreal. You can see his heart beating through the dressing on his chest. His skin tone is more pale and he is a little puffy. The nurses say he will get more puffy as the days go on due to all of his fluids.

As happy and relieved as we were about the surgery being over we were swept with more emotions of being scared and worried all over again. The easy part was over, now comes the hard part. It was strange having so many contradicting feelings at once. We are on Logan time now. Everything is up to him and we will wait until he is ready.

As the day went on the nurses and doctors keep a close eye on him and adjust everything as needed. Since he is paralyzed and sedated they need to find the balance with his o2 and blood pressures and chemical levels. They do neuro checks every hour and blood checks every half hour and adjust accordingly. We were just amazed at how incredible these nurses are, even though it is their specialty. As the day went on there weren't many changes. As the doctor said, we want boring.  We want Logan to be as boring as possible. And so far he is complying.

As the night went on we just sat in his room and watched as the nurses did their constant checks. We can't hold him and we can hardly touch him so all we can do is sit and visit with him. He has no idea that we are here right now, due to the medications, but I feel good being here with him.

Today we woke up and we didn't have any phone calls so we assumed everything stayed boring. We came down to see our buddy and sure enough he was doing fine. He had a few dips last night of his o2 stats and his blood pressure but they quickly adjusted his fluids and took care of it. Everything is a balance and it is up to the nurses to make sure everything stays balanced and they've been doing great. Logan is hanging in there and doing as good as he can. The doctor said that she is happy with his progress but we are not out of the woods yet. She said she will feel better tomorrow and even better the next day if he stays this way. She said that they are looking at Monday to close his chest. Once that is done they can work on weaning him off of the breathing tube and we can take steps forward to get him off some of his assitance. Those are all things we look forward too and those are all things that are up to Logan, whenever he is ready we will be ready. His time.

It's hard not to stare at all of his monitors and even harder not to get anxious when the alarms go off, but this is second nature to these nurses and I feel comforted that they are so relaxed and calm about fixing whatever is wrong. We joke that the only way Logan can be sassy is to make his alarms go off. He likes attention. Even though Everytime I hear an alarm I think, this is it, this is when everything goes downhill, he always seems to correct himself and goes back to normal. I hope that it stays that way and he only has these dips every once in a while.

So, as he is doing well we still can't breathe easy, we are optimistic and happy but we know in the back of our minds it could take a turn for the worst at any moment. Until we are in the clear we will take it minute by minute and hour by hour.