surgery
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Waking up
Namine is starting to wake up today. She’s not a very happy camper, as the saying goes, but she was awake and lucid enough – before they gave her some morphine for the pain – to tell me, “Get me out of here! Get your little girl out of here!” The nurse said, “We need…
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Settling in for the night
Namine is tucked into her bed, in her own room, here in the ICU.
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The Fontan is done!
Namine completed her third heart surgery, a fenestrated Fontan procedure.
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Almost done
The OR nurse just stopped in to tell us that they’ve started to warm Namine back up. It won’t be long now, and one of us will be allowed to go back and see her. They’ll be keeping her sedated for some time, though; we’ve been told to expect her to be in a significant…
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The long haul
Not too long ago, the OR nurse came back to give us a status update. It took awhile to get Namine’s lines in, but now they’re getting ready to put her on the heart-lung machine. She was intubated without incident, and she’s doing well. Waiting is the hard part, and we’re in it for the…
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The Fontan is now
Saying goodbye never gets easier. Just about a half hour ago, we left Namine in the doctors’ care, screaming for us. Screaming for us not to leave her, to please, please come back with her. My heart breaks every time. My goddamn heart. But it’s not for my heart – it’s for hers. Today is…
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Results of the cath
All things told, Namine’s heart catheterization went well. The doctors were able to see what they wanted to see, and we were able to go home by evening. But now we have complications to deal with.
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Pre-Fontan evaluation
Namine had a heart catheterization in preparation for the Fontan.
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A thought
If you can have a conversation with your child, that’s a pretty good sign they don’t need surgery on their mouth.
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Surgery drawing near
We consider the benefits of the Fontan now versus later.
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The hard part
Despite all the fun we had over the weekend with Namine’s first dance recital, we had a scare on Friday. We had just gotten home from the dress rehearsal, and Namine wasn’t feeling well. So we took her pulseox, expecting her O2 to be in the low 80s; we were certainly not prepared for what…
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In recovery
Namine has been taken up to the recovery room. She’s resting fitfully now; she’s also in quite a bit of pain.