Home Sweet Home . . .

Sorry for the lack of updates. I could not get the update to post last night. Apparently, I was having some technical difficulties which were probably just Amy difficulties. I have been so exhausted this week.

We made it home on Wednesday and Matthew is doing great. He is complaining that his legs still hurt but he is playing just fine and is full of energy.

We received great news from his heart cath. His heart is strong, no leaky valves, no issues with his aortic coarctation and no collateral veins needed to be closed. The only problem was they couldn't get cooperation from the veins they normally would go through in his legs for the cath. They called in another cardiologist to assist but still couldn't get the veins to cooperate. Instead, they had to go straight into the artery in his leg which led around to the back side of his heart so they basically performed the heart cath backwards. They believe this was due to all the lines he had placed in the same veins during his first two surgeries. Once those veins have been used multiple times they become less cooperative. Thank God for a great cardiologist who was able to figure things out and move forward with the cath.

Matthew's recovery was the scary part. As soon as we walked into the surgical recovery waiting room one of the ladies behind the desk asked if we were Matthew Orwig's parents, I immediately said yes and she said thank God, one of you need to come with me. She then took off jogging out the door. I hollered a quick I love you to Craig and then followed her out the door. Poor Craig was left behind in the waiting room wondering what was going on. Matthew woke up from anasthesia around 3:00 pm very angry and it took 6 nurses and myself to hold him down. He was to lay flat on his back until 9:00 pm but we could quickly tell that was going to be impossible. This was scary because he had recently open veins and arteries in his legs and neck and everyone was worried that he would start bleeding heavily. We had wonderful recovery room nurses but they were amazed at Matthew's strength. They pushed enough narcotics into him to put a grown man to sleep but it would calm Matthew down for no more than 60 seconds and then he was up fighting and pulling on all the tubes and wires. After an hour and a half of fighting I was in tears so they called a male nurse to help (more muscles) and they finally called Craig in to join us. When Dad got there they put Matthew on his lap and he took one look at Dad and immediately fell asleep. Dad still thinks he was the hero but I didn't want to burst his bubble that I think the narcotics finally caught up with him (or maybe it's that I'm struggling with the fact that I couldn't calm him down. He is a Momma's boy afterall). Rather than transferring Matthew into a bed to take him to his room, they pushed Dad through the hospital in the chair to avoid waking Matthew up again.

He slept very little through the night but was in good spirits. We made it home and he crashed Wednesday night and most of yesterday. He's back up and running again this morning.

All in all it was great to hear that his heart is strong going into this next surgery but it makes us nervous as to how they will keep him down for the open heart. We have a lot of questions for the surgeon. The cardiac team will be meeting next Monday to discuss the cath with the surgeons and recommend the date for surgery.

We are truly grateful for all of the calls and more importantly for the prayers. As far as Mom and Dad are concerned we are hanging in there. I thought I was strong going into this but I now realize that I'm scared to death for this next chapter in our life. I had been able to push all of this to the back of my mind for the past year and a half but now that the time is here for his next surgery I have so many emotions that are overwhelming me right now. I hope that I don't sound negative because I do know that I'm blessed and that God has carried us this far and will continue to carry us. I just wanted to share some of my feelings so that all of you can pray for my strength too. As a Mom, I just want to fix everything so it is hard to sit back and let go. Matthew screams my name nonstop when he is hurting and that gets to me.

Thanks again for your prayers. I will let you know when we hear from cardiology next week.