Things are progressing well. The baffle is pretty much complete and the they are beginning to close up the heart. The main deal here is to get all air out of the heart, there can't be any air bubbles at all or we'll have major issues. Then they'll install that last conduit that connects the heart to the lungs, this effectively closes the heart system and they'll be able to re-introduce blood to the heart and kick-start that thing, so long as there's no leaks. Once they do that, if his heart establishes its own good rhythm they'll just close him up. If it doesn't establish its own rhythm, they'll put in a pacemaker to do it for him.
In our last meeting with Jennifer, we asked what we'd see in the ICU. Cannon will just have a white bandage over the incision (under that are butterfly bandages holding the skin closed and stainless cables are holding the breastbone together). But he'll have a chest tube that will allow the chest cavity to drain, as well as the standard catheters, IVs, breathing tube, etc... Don't expect him to be swelled up until tomorrow, so he may still look a little like our son.
They'll keep him sedated tonight while we ride the roller coaster of blood pressure and heart rate swings. This is normal, but had they not warned us I'm sure our adrenaline would kick in the first time his blood pressure or heart rate dropped. Who am I kidding, the adrenaline is gonna kick in anyway. We hope that they'll get to wake him up tomorrow, that will depend on whether or not his BP stablilizes (and I'm sure at least 100 other parameters are met).
We hope the next update is at 5, given by Dr. Fraser himself!
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