Surgery Update #4

Thank you Jesus! Matthew has been out of surgery for about an hour and is now back in his room in the PICU. Dr. Fortuna just told us the surgery was a success. He ran into no issues with any of Matthew's arteries or heart function. I asked him to give me a number on a scale of 1 to 10 and he said it was definitely a 10.

The took him off of the ventilator 15 minutes ago and he's breathing on his own now. This is encouraging since it took 5 days to get him off the ventilator after his first surgery. He's still on a high flow oxygen canula.

Now begins the delicate medication tweaking stage. I don't remember if we mentioned this before but along with making his heart more stable the procedure Matthew had today (Bi-directional Glenn) results in a significant increase in blood flow to the head causing very intense headaches lasting 4-7 days. He is clearly in a lot of pain right now so they have to walk a tight rope of giving him enough medication to keep him comfortable and his heart rate and blood pressure down while not giving him too much so that he forgets to breathe on his own.

We're feeling pretty good right now. Thank you so much for your prayers today. Because this is still a very sensitive time Amy and I are going to sleep at the hospital tonight so we can stay close by. We'll continue to give updates throughout the evening.

Love,
Craig & Amy

p. s.
Sorry again for the time between updates. This waiting room is a zoo today.