Heart photos - preamble

Samuel just had a post-surgery echo-cardiogram. While we were in the room, the doctor that took photographs during the surgery, Dr. Silverman, came by and let me know he had the pictures ready and was going to meet with Dr. Hanley first to make sure that he has all of the descriptions correct.

I'm waiting to meet with him now and take the hand-off. I'm likely going to put up a post with these this evening. I'll label the post - Samuel's Heart - cause guess what, his heart will be the main subject. In person, as it were.

I'll give a warning at the top of the post. If you are getting these via email and not sure you are gonna be ready to see my son's heart, you may just want to delete that message.

Pre-Op

Tomorrow is a full day. We received a letter telling us all that is on tap for the day. It includes an Electrocardiogram, an Echocardiogram, an X-Ray of the heart, and some blood chemistry work.

He'll also meet with nurses, anesthesiologists, and a few other ologists I can't remember. One of those will be one of the cardiologists we met on the day he was born. He was one of the guys that helped present to us the analysis of Samuel's condition at birth and some potentials and prognosis at that time.

Oh, and they will also do the basics to make sure that all things considered, he is healthy and ready for his date with Dr. Hanley. Assuming that is all cool, health-wise, he could still get postponed if there are no beds available on the back-end (ICU-recovery), or if an emergency case comes in that would take precedence. This has always been one of my greatest fears, that we get to this point and we hit a snag. I pray for everything to align so that we can get this done and move into a recovery phase.

Update on today: Samuel, Rowena, and I met with Samuel's pediatrician / cardiologist, Dr. Greene. Dr. G. explained what would happen in a bit more detail to Samuel and what he can expect immediately afterwards. As always, Samuel surprised me because he took this all in stride. He was told he would be in some amount of pain a day or so after he woke up.

Surprising to me is that Dr. G. suggested that Samuel not continue to lift weights - an isometric work out, that could cause raised pressures in his heart. Curious... There is other weight lifting he can do, but is now advised to not do "power-lifting". Bummer. That was one of our favorite Special Olympics events. He is not yet actually old enough to compete in this event, but I had been coaching for the last 2 years and was looking forward to continuing on with that. I may continue to coach anyway. We'll see...