Day of Surgery: 11:59am

The PA just came to update us. She assures us that everything is going just fine. However, as they were dissecting away the scar tissure they nicked the original fontan circuit vessel and thus there has been a lot of bleeding. Blood pressure and sats remain good and he has received a lot of fluid due to the bleeding. Due to this little snafu ( I think that is how to spell it...), they have had to abandon the scar tissue dissection to try and get him placed on the bypass machine via femoral artery.... Sounds easy, right? Hopefully. See last March when we were here for his heart cath they were unable to access either the left or right femoral arteries. They found out that they were both occluded as a result of multiple caths throughout his lifetime.

The plan from here is to get him placed on the bypass machine via femoral artery and return to dissecting away the scar tissue so that they can get to the repair part of the surgery. As you might imagine, this delays things a bit. I told them to take all the time that they need. I'm in no hurry. Of course, that was mostly a lie... but she did assure me that there is no panic stricken doctors at this moment. I hope that is the truth. :-)

I did ask the question: "What if you are unable to access the femoral artery?" and the response was, "We'll just try the other one." Ok. Then what? What if? But then again, I can "what if" my self crazy!

Jimmy's mom said," You know if he (Jimmy) knew what was going on right now he would be giving them heck." That is true. I can hear him now..."What do you mean you nicked the large vessel? I thought you all had done this before! You gotta be kidding me....explicatve, explicative, explicative!!" At least the thought of what he'll say makes me smile.

The nerves are a jumpin' though. I did relax enough to take a little rest. Mom has gone to Mass to pray. Dad and Jake are out roaming around the hospital because it is hard to sit still. Jimmy's parent's are looking out the window watching the cranes building a new addition to the hospital across the street. The tension of silence and worry surround us all. We have a long, long day ahead of us. If only they could give us all anesthesia to get through this, wouldn't that be great! "Hey now, wake up it's all over and everything went fine." Of course, that would add a lot to the final bill I am sure of it.... and I am sure that insurance would have something negative to say about paying for all of that comfort. Alas, I digress. We plan to know more in a couple of hours. Til then...