Surgery Day: August 12th, 2009

Jonas was first on the roster for surgery, and we came in before sunrise to spend a little time with him before the team came to pick him up. When they arrived, we walked with them down the long hallways as they rolled Jonas's bassinet toward the operating room. We stood over him, kissed him goodbye, and tried to hold back tears until his bed was out of sight. Kris and I hugged each other as hard as we could, crying in the middle of the hospital hallway. We had been promised periodic updates as stages of the operation were completed, right down to the time they would be given. They came like clockwork, and with each update came a sigh of relief that everything was going well. Jonas's heart was in the hands of surgeon Dr. Redmond Burke, a charismatic and soft spoken man that put us at ease with his warmth immediately.

After several hours, it was finally done. We waited for Jonas to be moved to a recovery room, and got ready by scrubbing our hands and donning these extremely stylish masks:



We had been warned before we entered the room that Jonas's chest had been left open. The concern was that there would be fluid buildup in the chest cavity, so it was better to leave it open than to close it and have complications arise.



We were both happy just to see our son, but remained mostly quiet as we stood by his bedside. These first few days were difficult, as Jonas was on so many medications, he was often sleeping or barely conscious. Kris took the photo below to show all of the machines our tiny little boy was hooked up to post-surgery.



Surgery was over, but we still had many days to go before we could even begin to think of taking our son home for the first time.