Anyway, moving on to the story. The next few days after she was admitted were just a waiting game. Unfortunately she was admitted on memorial day weekend so the doctors were MIA. They were around if there was an emergency but thankfully Brighton wasn't considered one. Shaun and I's days were filled by meeting with the doctors, running back and forth from the hotel, and trying to get little Carters temp under control. My little brother Caden even took a little bit of a detour to be there for Brighton and just stop in to say hi. I have never felt so lucky to have the family I do until that weekend. I still can't believe how everyone sprung into action to be here for little sis. We spent a lot of time meeting with the cardiologist and doing research on the surgeons and the hospital in general. We obviously wanted Brighton to be in the best hands she could be for this surgery so we were even talking about transferring her to Boston. We decided that Atlanta was the right place for Brighton and moved forward with planning and understanding her surgery. Since it was memorial day weekend the doctors were going to come in that Tuesday and have a discussion about what they thought was the best course of action. Things like exactly what surgery they should do, should they fix everything at once, and make sure they totally understood what they were going to see when they opened her up. The plan was for her to have surgery on Wednesday or Thursday after the doctors got together.
Since the surgery was a few days away our family all headed back home to get back to their own responsibilities. Everyone but my dad left, He stayed to help us get through the surgery and more or less be there to help make sure we weren't missing something, especially since Shaun's and I heads were still spinning. About 2 hours after we sent everyone home we got a call from a surgeon saying Brighton was to go into surgery the next morning. WHAT?! We thought we had 3 or 4 days to prepare for this! We rushed to the hospital to sit down with one of the attendings and talked about what exactly was going to happen the next morning. I remember sitting with him trying my best to not go numb... to keep my brain sharp and to really listen. My mind kept wandering off into random what if's which is a really scary place to go when it comes to something like this! Lucky Shaun and my dad were more on point and were asking all the right questions. Once we got everything squared away we went back to the hotel and tried to get some sleep.
That night Shaun and I said a prayer and begged that Brighton would be ok. We begged that she would be strong and that the surgery would go well. I can honestly say that no prayer has every been that hard or scary to say. I now know what it feels like to truly turn everything to Gods hands and to trust in his plan. I knew that it was all his will and that either way that was what was going to happen but I was hoping like crazy that his will was that Brighton would be ok.
The next morning we woke up and rushed to the hospital. Before they took her back we had a few minutes to hold her. Those minutes were so scary. She was going in for a major surgery that was really complex. The doctor was literally using his hands and tweezers to re-plum Brighton's strawberry size heart. She would be ok, She had to be ok.
The nurses and surgical team came to Brighton's stall and told us it was time. I laid our little girl on the bed and Shaun and I along with my parents walked her to the doors or the OR. They put down the side of her crib and told me to kiss her and say "see you later". I bent down and kissed her on the head and felt her little hand wrap around my finger. I was a mess. I wanted to grab her off the bed and run as far from those doors as I could get. I wanted to be anywhere but there. I unwrapped her finger and kissed her one more time then turned around feeling like I was about to fall. But Shaun was there and wrapped his arms around me and held me up. He then passed me off to my dad so he could kiss Brighton as well and we all stood there sobbing as they pushed her through the doors. The next 8 hours were going to be the longest hours of my life, of our lives.
Every hour a nurse from the room would call the waiting room and the secretary would yell out the last name of the patient. From there a family member would go grab the phone and get an update. I knew they wouldn't call and tell us over the phone is something bad happened but I would still tense up and literally hold my breath each time Shaun went and answered it. I would stare at his face the whole time he was on with them trying to read into what was being said. If you know Shaun you know he's about as cool headed as it gets so reading into his facial expressions or body language never got me far. He was really good to always give me a nod to say things were good and I would take a deep breath. It was a really good thing my parents were there, they were a great distraction. We talked about horses, looked and ranches my dad wanted to buy, and they even talked us into going and eating. Although the 8 hours were long it actually went by really fast. Until the last hour.
All thought out that day my stomach was churning and really starting to get to me, when they called to tell us Brighton was done, and that the surgeon was on his way out to talk to us I felt even worse. I went to the bathroom right away and tried to prepare myself for whatever we were about to be told. I so hoped that the surgeon would say it went absolutely perfect but I knew there was always a chance, and I was so scared of that chance.
We all walked into this little room and in walked the surgeon who looked like he had just been through the ringer. You could tell he was tired and worn. He looked like he needed a dang good nap after that. Can't blame him, he literally just spent the last 6 hours moving things around that were the size of pen tips and some were even smaller than a piece of hair! It amazing that he was able to do it! He told us everything went well and that the next 24 hours were extremely crucial. If she made it past that we could all breath a little easier. He also told us that he left her chest cavity open and that he would reassess and close her in a couple days. It's extremely common for that to happen, since the body and heart become so swollen it puts to much pressure to try and close the chest cavity. Because of this they wait few days for the swelling to go down and then the surgeon comes back and actually does the procedure right in the CICU.
Since it takes awhile for them to get Brighton settled back in the CICU we decided to grab dinner. We went to a favorite little spot of ours. I was still feeling pretty sick so most of my time out was spent back in the bathroom, but the food did taste good so it wasn't a total loss. We grabbed a Popsicle to go and headed back to see our little miss.
No comments:
Post a Comment