Today has been busy! Lydie had her chest tube (drain), a monitoring strip, her arterial line, and a foot & hand IV removed!! She’s starting to look like my baby, again!! ☺️With one new addition... We got our first look at the incision, today. 😬💔💪🏻 Oh, my mama heart. Oh, her real heart!
Other happy news: She started drinking from a bottle again, although we still have the feeding tube for backup (and meds) if we need it. And soon I get to hold her!!! We are cruising!
Would it surprise you, then, to know that we are committed to the ICU for another week at least? We are 😞
Let me explain. Lydia had multiple repairs made, but there were some structural complications we didn’t know about (even with 5 million echos) that the surgeon found when he got in there. So he had to improvise a little. Thankfully we have an AMAZING surgeon with tons of experience. He was able to make the repairs, but Lydia is now in what is called “heart block.” Her chambers aren’t talking to each other, so her heart is not beating in a coordinated way. This could be because her heart is stunned or swollen or damaged from all the work done. This may or may not improve. The surgeon was really surprised because he thought he had missed areas that would cause this, but again, she’s a complicated case. SO. We have one week, which is how long it takes for most heart block cases that are going to self-correct to do so. And many do. If it does not heal and start beating in sync, in one week they will go back in and place a pacemaker. Which yes, means another surgery through the same incision.
That’s where we sit. We are obviously hoping and praying so so hard that her heart will recover and beat normally. But, if it doesn’t, she will have a pacemaker which shouldn’t affect her quality of life. We’re grateful that we live in a time when these kinds of miracles like massive repairs and pacemakers are even possible!! We’re just also hoping that there’s one more huge miracle waiting around the corner for this girl. 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻 #misslydiefaith#heartwarrior
