Hello all - Am at home now, sitting here with Tracy. RJ is in the ICU, doing well, has much more color than the dead lady they pushed by us in the pre-op.
The doctor and nurses all said that he came through with flying colors, he had his aortic valve replaced, ended up using a bovine tissue valve (got milk?) instead of a mechanical valve. His arteries are all clear, no blockage of any kind, just a very small leak in the mitral valve, and they discussed in the OR whether or not to fix that one too. The surgeon felt that fixing the one would alleviate pressure on the second one, and it was small enough that it wouldn't cause him to need this surgery again in a couple years for that valve. Other than that, he has a clean bill of health.
The plan is to keep him sedated and under until about 2am this morning; they will take him out from the sedation and off the respirator then, and seat him in a chair (sound familiar, Karen?) The goal is to have him up, help with circulation, help prevent blood clots, etc. They will then let him go back to bed, with the plan of getting him up and out for breakfast at 7:30am - taskmasters, every one of them! My plan is to be there once I get the kids to school.
He has many tubes and the like, but I promise I didn't feel queasy once - who knows about tomorrow, I can hear everyone in the family laughing. As long as there aren't any bolts sticking up out of the floor, Gary won't have to catch me.
Special thanks to Larry, Barbara, Cathy, and Tracy for their help today. Missy came by too, I guess Anaheim has a better therapy dog program than Seattle - 'Juneau' that I didn't even need to buy one at the drugstore. (hee hee hee)
Gotta go to bed so I can be up and ready for another 10 hour stint in ICU tomorrow.
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