Preparing for tomorrow

Today has been a busy day, but not out of the ordinary for the day prior to a surgery. I spoke with the cardiac surgeon and they intend to repair the vascular ring and a carotid-subclavian reimplantation. They are anticipating going in from the left side through the ribs. The surgery itself is expected to last about 3-4 hours and go straight to intensive care post-surgery. They are anticipating the start time ranging anywhere from noon to 3pm. So It could be as late as 6pm or 7pm before the surgery is complete. There is another case in front of us and they also have to clean the machines due to the malignant hypothermia precautions prior to Elias going in. That is the reason for the start range. Elias had a rough start to the morning as we discussed in our last update. This afternoon has been up and down for him, but he has seemed to settle a little. There were even a couple of smiles and laughs this evening.

We are mentally preparing for this as well. Tomorrow will be much more filled with nerves than today has been. We are ready for this to happen though so we can move forward. We have been pretty much at a stand still for eight days now. Tomorrow will be three weeks for this admission. We are hopeful that this operation alone will help stabilize Elias airway without the need for more intervention, such as Si Pap. All we can do is pray and put it in Gods hands. We know that many will be thinking & praying about our little man tomorrow and we want everyone to know how much we appreciate that. As we are able we will attempt to post any updates we get throughout the day on Facebook for those of you who are on their with us as well as twitter. You can click the the link in the menu at the top of the page for Elias twitter page. You do not have to be a member of twitter to see those updates. Thank you again for all your support. While we will face greater challenges ahead this one is certainly a big one, but we anticipate that Elias will conquer this one just as he has many others before.