Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Happy Fontanaversary Jordyn P

It's congenital heart disease awareness week. It has also been a year since Jordyn had her last surgery. It's been a year since I sat, 7 months pregnant with the girls, at her bedside. A year since Mark had to be red crossed home from Afghanistan and it's been a year since we almost lost her. I can still remember every little detail of that night like I was living it in slow motion. The day after her surgery she was having a hard time keeping her numbers stable. They were having to give her lots and lots of plasma. She would be ok for a little after that, then they would drop again. Things started to go down hill when her oxygen on the resperator was turned up as high as it would go and her sats were still dropping. They had to start bagging her by hand. When they did this her sats went up for awhile. As time passed her O2 sats slowly came down and down. By the time she reached 40% I was being pushed out of the room while everyone else came rushing in. Life support was brought to right outside her door. I could see them working on her calling out orders and getting her ready to be rushed back to the OR. Then doctors started to come and talk to me. At that point everything sounded like I was underwater. I could hear them but I was fixated on Jordyn. Until the words "Something is very wrong and she may not make it to the OR down the Hall" were said, then life all at once hit me. Jordyn was crashing and crashing fast. They needed to get her to the cath lab to see what was going on with her heart. I was being asked to sign a piece of paper giving them permission to do the procedure without knowing if she will come back to me. They let me kiss her before they took her down the hall. I remember holding her hand and talking to her then kissing her forehead and then she was wheeled out the door. The cath lab staff were great. They called me when they got her down there, to let me know she was still stable, still being bagged. They called when they started and throughout the whole thing. Then the best call came. They found out that the new piece of gortext they put in had some how collapsed. They were able to fix it and she would be coming back to the PCICU in a little bit. When I spoke to the surgeon later that night he still did not know how that happened, that everything went great during her open heart and that it was just one of those things. He made it clear to me that she was not out of the woods and was still in critically condition. Jordyn was bagged for 5 hours untill they were able to find a setting on the vent that her body liked. I am forever grateful for the RT's, doctors, nurses who kept my baby alive. Jordyn had a very rough recovery from her last open heart. She is now feeling great and acting like a typical 3 year old. She has tons of energy and is on the go all day. She is my little heart hero and I can not wait to see what you become. I love you baby girl.