The Day Before the Surgery (Day 0)

Amelia's surgery has been scheduled for tomorrow -- Monday, March 5th. At one point, we thought we might have to go the U.S. for the surgery since Sick Kids had too many nurses off sick to do any surgeries at all, but, fortunately, this crisis has been averted, and she'll be having the surgery at Sick Kids.

Today at Sick Kids, John and I finally met with a surgeon (well, a surgical fellow) to discuss the surgery that Amelia will have. He explained the procedure, which John outlined in a previous posting. He also went through the risk factors -- stroke, bleeding and infection. The mortality rate is 20%, which shocked me, but he also told us that that is the rate for all truncus surgeries at all hospitals -- the rate at Sick Kids is much lower (more like 5%); plus, her truncus is not the worst kind.

Her surgery is scheduled to be the first of the day. She will be taken to the OR at 8:00 am, surgery will start at around 10:00, and will last 3-4 hours. So, unless it's cancelled, by this time tomorrow her heart will be fixed. I'm feeling quite optimistic. Her surgeon is excellent, apparently, and he's the head of the department. I told the surgical fellow that I saw him on T.V. (on Little Miracles, a show filmed at Sick Kids about its patients), and he laughed. Apparently, he's quite a perfectionist, which, to me, sounds like a great quality in a surgeon.

Anyway, I feel ready for all of this. Yes, it's a complex, fairly risky surgery, but she has to have it. The fellow (I don't remember his name) said that Amelia will be in the ICU for about three days if she comes out of surgery with her incision closed, and about six days if her incision is kept open to deal with the swelling. He thought she might be home in two weeks, but I'm skeptical. She still needs to learn to eat for herself because I'm not planning on taking her home with an NG tube!

Amelia looked good this afternoon and evening, but she keeps losing her IV lines. She has a huge bruise on her left arm from her last blood transfusion and smaller bruises on her right arm and left ankle from her IVs "going interstitial" (IV fluid pooling under the skin). They redid the IV on her left foot and it has to last until the morning. She's just too wiggly for IVs, I guess. We have to be back at the hospital by 7:00 am to meet with an anaesthesiologist and to take her to the operating area by 8:00. It's going to be a long day.

Wish us luck. We'll let you know how it all went.

M&J