CHAPTER 4 – The Glenn Procedure
The week before your first surgery, we checked in early
morning to Children’s Hospital Colorado for a heart catheterization. It was a procedure where the doctors gave you
medicine to fall asleep and then they sent a tiny camera through your vein in
your leg all the way up to your heart.
It seems pretty unbelievable what doctors are able to do these
days! I never got to see the camera, but
it must have been pretty small! They
took measurements and pressures in different parts of your heart to get ready
for the surgery.
It was very snowy that morning, and we were a little late,
but everyone was, so it was no problem!
We helped you into a cute baby hospital gown and took silly pictures
together. We didn’t want to let you go,
but we had to – we knew that this procedure was important so that the doctors
and surgeon had all the info they needed for surgery. Dr. Miller from Rocky Mountain Pediatric
Cardiology did the heart cath, and came out to talk to us after it was
done. Everything looked good, and he
gave his permission for the surgery. We
were with you when you woke up, and I remember holding you on my lap in a big
hospital chair. We needed to make sure
that you laid flat for four hours so that the spot where the catheter went in
could heal up and stop bleeding. You
slept most of the time, which was good, because it is very hard to convince a
five month old to lie still.
A day or two later we went back to the hospital for the
pre-op visit. They gave us a tour and
gave you a snuggly blanket, then we needed to have a nurse take out a little
bit of your blood to make sure you were healthy and to find out what type of
blood you have. We were dreading this,
because no one wants their baby to get a finger poke or a blood draw, but the
nurse at Children’s was a pro! No
problem at all! On these visits we met
nurse Esther who was the main cardiac (heart) surgery nurse. She was such a kind lady, and we hope you can
meet her again some day.
Monday morning, November 14, 2011. Daddy and I get you up early in the morning,
still in your jammies, and drive to Children’s Hospital, Colorado. It is about 6:30 when we arrive, and meeting
us in the lobby are both sets of grandparents and your two aunties. We chat in a little circle after checking in
and getting you a wristband. Each family
member takes turns holding you for a little bit. Then we go up the glass elevators to the
third floor together. The family stays
in the waiting room, and daddy and I carry you in to the Cardiac Pre/Post Unit
and get set up in a room. Many nurses
and doctors come in with papers to sign and chat a bit with us as we wait. I don’t remember everything, but I know that
it was busy and that you were sweet and
smiley most of that time. Then they all
left for a few minutes, and Daddy and I prayed with you. The nurse came to take you into the Operating
Room where they would do your heart surgery, but we couldn’t come with. The Operating Rooms of the hospital are
sterile, very clean places, and so only the people who scrub up very well and
wear special, clean uniforms can go inside.
You started crying as soon as the nurse took you away from us, but she
assured us that you would only cry for a minute or so, because as soon as they
brought you in they would give you medicine through a mask that would make you
fall asleep.
Daddy and I started crying because we were sad and scared
and we didn’t want to be separated from you and we didn’t want you to have to
have open heart surgery. We didn’t know
if the surgeon would be able to fix your heart like he thought he could. I am even crying a little bit now as I
remember and write out these words, because it was one of the hardest moments
of my life. There was nothing I could do
to help you, it was out of my hands. One
thing that we had to learn as you were a baby going through all of this is that
sometimes in life we think that we are in control. We think that we can protect our babies by
putting them in the safest car seats and keeping them away from busy roads and
unhealthy food. And those things are
good and important. But at the same
time, we can’t protect our babies from everything. I was facing a problem that I couldn’t fix,
even though I wanted to make things better all by myself in a simple and
pain-free way. Sometimes we can’t go
around a problem and avoid a scary thing, we have to go right through it.
But do you know how Daddy and I survived that very hard day
and the tough days before and after it?
We knew deep down inside us that we didn’t have the strength to survive,
but we had hope that the Lord would be with us all the way through, and that he
cared for you just as much as we did.
And more! I would have loved it
if we had prayed and that God had miraculously healed your heart like He healed
the blind man named Bartimaeus in the Bible.
But He didn’t. And I knew that
that didn’t mean that He wasn’t able to.
God can do anything! But
sometimes He doesn’t do what we want Him to do, and so in those times, we stop
and remember who He is and what He has already done for us, and then we ask Him
to help us through the thing we don’t want to go through.
Daddy and I soon left the room and went out into the waiting
room where our family was waiting and we prayed there and waited and talked and
ate snacks. Every half hour or so, nurse Esther would come
out and give us an update on what was happening in the OR. Part of me wanted to be alone with Daddy, and
part of me was glad for company. Our
family wanted to be close because they cared so much about you too. And many, many people around Colorado and
Minnesota and the U.S. were praying for you during the surgery. The surgery lasted perhaps four hours or so,
and this is what they did:
First, after you were comfortably asleep, they gave you pain
medicine so that you would not feel anything.
Then they put in a variety of needles and tubes into you so that they
could give you medicine quickly if you needed it. They put you on a respirator that would give
you oxygen through a tube down your throat so that your body would continue to
get the air that it needed while you were asleep and in surgery. The doctors then very carefully cleaned your
chest again and made an incision on your chest that was about 3-4 inches long. They cut open the sternum, the strong bone
you feel in the center of your rib cage, and they could soon see your
heart. You were on the heart lung
machine at this point. It is an amazing
machine that takes the blood from your body and cleans it and sends it back
into your body again. This was so that
your heart could be stopped from beating and working so hard so that the
surgeon could do the work on it. When
nurse Esther came out to the lobby to update us that you were on the machine,
it was a very solemn, serious time. We
knew that these moments were very important.
As you were on the machine, Dr. Jaggers and his team took the superior
vena cava, which brings blood back to the heart from the upper part of your
body, cut it off, and attached it to the pulmonary artery. Blood in your heart would now go past the
heart from the body and directly to the lungs.
A big, long loop, instead of two shorter loops. Then they closed up your chest, stitched you
up, bandaged you up, and gave you more medicine. You were sleeping the whole time.
When Dr. Jaggers came out to the waiting room, we knew that
the surgery was done, and he said that it was successful. We were so relieved and so thankful! The hardest and worst was over! I remember shaking his hand and saying thank
you, feeling like saying thank you was not enough. He is a man who has done these surgeries for
many, many years, and he studied and prepared for many, many years before
that. We are so thankful for him, and
others like him who were used by God to save our little girl’s life! And I got to shake his hand, the same hand
that had been carefully fixing your heart an hour earlier!
The doctors and nurses moved you into the Cardiac Intensive
Care Unit soon after that, and within an hour they let Daddy and I come to see
you for the first time. They warned us
that it would be hard because there were still a lot of tubes attached to
you. Can I tell you something that is
hard? When I first saw you lying there
on the hospital bed, I didn’t know it was you.
It only took a moment and I could tell that it was my Ada June, but I
had been distracted by everything attached to you. You were puffy because they had given you a
lot of water and liquid through an IV, and I believe that you still were on the
respirator as well, so you had a big tube coming out of your mouth. We stood by your bed and watched you sleep,
listening to the whirring and beeping of all the machines in your room that
were monitoring your blood pressure and temperature and respirations and blood
oxygen levels. Nurses and CICU doctors
came through often and cared for you in a variety of ways. Daddy and I took turns that night staying
awake in your room, as we were concerned for you. It was very hard to watch you wake up and cry
because we couldn’t explain what was happening, and we didn’t know completely
if the pain medicine was enough or if you were hurting. Doctors told us that it was not uncommon for
little ones who have just had the Glenn Procedure to have very bad
headaches. Maybe that was happening with
you, but you weren’t able to talk yet to tell us.
You stayed for a day in the CICU, and then after they had
taken you off the respirator and had taken off more tubes and wires and
machines, the doctors moved you to another floor, the Cardiac Floor, which was
much higher in the hospital – the 7th or 8th floor
perhaps. The room was a bit quieter and
had more privacy, so we could sleep right there in the room with you at night. Your nurses on that floor were all so very
kind and they loved you! You were only a
baby, 5 months old, but you would smile and cackle laugh at all your visitors, once you were feeling
better. In all, you were in the hospital
for only 8 days. Day by day you would
smile more and need less medicine, and you became more stable in your heart
rate and blood pressure. Your blood
oxygen levels were honestly worse than they had been prior to the surgery,
which was a tough thing to see and understand.
Before your surgery, your oxygen levels were in the low 90s, and after
the surgery, your numbers were middle to high 80s. This was what Dr. Nydam expected to see
though, and we were told that after your next surgery, your numbers would go up again.
You were released from the hospital a couple days before
Thanksgiving, and you were off of oxygen!
Because of your surgery, you had a bandage on your chest, and we also
needed to remember to scoop you up from your chair and car seat so that we didn’t
lift you from under your arms… for six weeks!
But you didn’t need oxygen, and the doctors and nurses were very happy
with how you were healing. Daddy and I
breathed a sigh of relief. The time in
the hospital had been hard and scary, but at the same time, we were so thankful
that you had done so well and that the Lord had given us all the strength that
we needed. Grandma Lois stayed with us
until the morning of Thanksgiving… she prepared the turkey at our little
apartment, and didn’t even get to stay to eat it with us! But we ate with the Pitrone side of the
family and were grateful that we were on the other side of the Glenn.
