Tuesday, June 15, 2010

and the surgery saga continues...


Summer is finally here! But somehow it doesn't feel like it yet. My stress level usually dissipates on the last day of school, but it's still here. Why? I'll tell you.

Yesterday started the first day of my 3rd graduate course in 6 weeks. It's a really great course, and I'm learning a lot, but it's still a lot of work. When the course is over, summer really begins for me, because I don't have to think about school again until August. AMEN.

Lucas's thumbs surgery is finally going to happen tomorrow. That's not a typo, by the way. His trigger thumbS will now be fixed, we believe. Last week I noticed that his right thumb is now triggering. Go figure. We haven't seen the surgeon again, so he'll evaluate when he sees Lucas tomorrow, but he's likely to fix that one too. I guess it was a hidden blessing that surgery was cancelled twice already. We are hopefully avoiding another surgery.

Last week I got a call informing me that Lucas now needs cardiac anesthesia. I was pretty surprised and upset by this, because it's an indication that Lucas's heart condition has either worsened (and we weren't really informed of it) or his condition has been interpreted differently. The most recent cardiac letter (4.5.10) states that the reguritation (which causes the audible murmur) is probably closer to moderate than mild. I believe that's the reason for the change. Nonetheless, Lucas had to attend another pre-anesthesia appointment this morning to cover that. It was rather anti-climatic after traveling 2.5 hours to Philly during rush hour, but I got to drop off his referrals and make sure that everything is ready for tomorrow.

On the bright side, whereas the first time Lucas's surgery was cancelled he had a 12:30 PM arrival time, tomorrow we have a 6:00 AM arrival time. Yes, we have to leave our house by 4:30 AM (no fun!!!), but I don't have to deal with a hungry/thirsty toddler for 6 hours prior to surgery. Lucas's schedule shouldn't be thrown off much because of this surgery time either. I hope.

Tomorrow we're planning a three-fer: three procedures in one surgery. Left thumb, check! Right thumb, probably! And a heart echo while he's still under anesthesia. This way they can get a really good reading of his heart and we can have a baseline for the future.

Please pray for Lucas's safe and successful surgery tomorrow. It's going to be a long day...

4 comments:

Julia said...

Good luck with everything! It sounds like you have an awful lot on your plate. I'll be thinking of you folks.

leah said...

Praying for you guys! When I saw your post on FB, I thought the extra "s" was a typo- it was definitely a good thing the surgery got delayed: one surgery is better than two!

Have you requested the official reports from Lucas's echos? I've done that for several of Nolan's tests, because we get different responses from different docs, and I wanted to see the unbiased report(s).

Sending positive thoughts your way, for a good (stable) echo, fixed thumbs, and a fast recovery!

Lone Star Family said...

Praying for little Lucas today!!

tammy said...

I saw on FB you all are home and everything went well! Praying now for a speedy recovery and a whole lot of fun to your all's summer!