Arianne's Surgery

Arianne's surgery went perfect. If only recovery wasn't so hard! We got here at 5:30 AM on Thursday and they took her into the Operating Room at 8:00. She was so strong all morning. She got upset when they wheeled her away but the nurse called us in the surgery waiting room to let us know that she settled right down and they got her to sleep quickly. The nurses here are fantastic! They treat Arianne so lovingly. Surgery lasted about 41/2 hours. We got a call every hour to let us know that things were going well. Dr. Woods had 3 plans of action, each depending on exactly how the artery was implanted in the aorta. It ended up requiring the more detailed procedure. He had to take the artery off, close the hole it left, bring it around the aorta and re-implant it. We were taken to her in PICU at about 1:00 in the afternoon. She was actually a little awake and they had taken her breathing tube out in the operating room. That was a huge blessing because one of Arianne's biggest fears was having to have that tube in. (and having it removed!) Her throat is sore and her voice is a little strained but still WAY better than having that big tube in her. She still had a lot of tubes attached to her ~ drainage from her heart, monitors for her breathing, pulse, and oxygen, a tube of oxygen, and others. It was heartbreaking to walk in and see her but she said hi to us and said that it hurt a lot so they gave her some strong pain medicine and she slept for quite a while. She didn't sleep well last night, it was kinda noisy, they come in a lot to check things and she was a little uncomfortable. This morning when the surgeon came in he said she was doing great and they could take her off of all the tubes except one IV. He said she could move to a regular recovery room out of PICU, too. Unfortunately, when they moved her it took a couple of hours to get her back on pain med's and she ended up in a lot of pain again. It's been a really long day trying to get things stabilized again. They tried some oral medication and she ended up with an upset stomach (hmmm... no food for 2 days, then codeine? might cause that!!!) She did have a good hour or 2 today and walked about 15 steps. That was HUGE! She hurts a lot when she breathes deep and walking naturally makes her breathe a little bigger. She won't take any big breaths because it hurts so they may need to hook that drip medicine up again. I am so tired I don't even know if this makes any sense but I thought I'd try to update everyone. I couldn't stay in the room anymore or I was going to go find her some new drugs myself so I left Darrell with her and found this computer. He's probably wondering where I am... he thinks I went to find ice for my Dr. Pepper. This new room has a little recliner so maybe I can sleep in there.
Thanks for all of the prayers. I know they have been answered.

A perfect surgery? What more could we ask?