Heart repair

Nov 10 was Maya's heart surgery. We were relieved to know that everything went very well before, during & after the procedure. We arrived at Children's Hospital at 9:30am, she went in for anesthesia at 11:30am, the procedure started at 12, was done by 1:15, we got to see her at 2:45. She was out of OR recovery by 4:00, and was out of day care recovery by 5:00. It all went quite smoothly. They ended up putting a 3mm 2-sided plug in her heart hole that closed it all up (insteat of the coiled stent). She has 2 small incisions, one in the groin of each leg but those should disappear over time.

It's been almost 48 hours since the procedure and there's no sign of bleeding, infection or loss of circulation in her legs. Yipee!!! We go back in 2 weeks to get another heart ultrasound just to make sure it's all healed up. All should be fine.

Emotionally, we both handled it very well. The staff at the hospital were amazing and met with us at each phase to tell us what was going to happen, how and when, and if we had any questions. Although I don't think this experience has helped Maya with her fear of medical people, she also handled it quite well. A bonus for her was to get a popcicle post-op which she had never had before & didn't know what to do with, but she learned it fast...