Happy Halloween!

From a beautiful fairy, a tough pirate and an adorable doctor! We feel so fortunate to be home and trick or treating around our own neighborhood tonight. Can you even believe this guy had major heart surgery only one week ago?!

When Johnny Comes Marching Home!

We’ve been anticipating this day for months, and it felt just as good as we had imagined to drive back over the mountains and into Harrisonburg with our little boy healing nicely from his surgery!  A few months ago we all learned the chorus of the Civil War song “When Johnny Comes Marching Home,” which is about a soldier but captures what we were hoping for, too:

When Johnny comes marching home again,
Hurrah, hurrah!
We’ll give him a hearty welcome then,
Hurrah, hurrah!
The men will cheer, and the boys will shout,
The ladies, they will all turn out,
The joyful day when Johnny comes marching home.

Check out this rousing performance of the song by the group Vocal Majority, which includes the following beautiful lyrics:

Day by day, and hour by hour,
We’ve waited in dread dismay,
Fearing the worst would come upon our boy.
Now we can shed the fear,
Johnny will soon be here,
Sorrow is gone, wait for the dawn,
There will be tears of joy!

It has been a truly joyful day for our family. John ate well this evening and is sleeping soundly. Though it is long past their bedtime, Katie and Benjamin are still awake in the room they share, chattering away in the dark as they often do. Maureen and I are relieved, happy, and deeply grateful for God’s provision for our family. We are celebrating His unending faithfulness and the love and kindness of family and friends!

Healing

John continued to heal today. He ate well, slept a lot this morning, watched the parade of medical personnel with wary interest, and interacted normally with Maureen and me, smiling regularly and reaching out to feel our faces and grab our hands. His supplemental oxygen is gone and his oxygen levels are still consistently in the 80s, which is very good at this stage. Unless something changes overnight, John will be discharged tomorrow and we’ll return to Harrisonburg! We’re excited and grateful that our stay here may be shorter than expected. John still has some healing to do, and it will be wonderful to care for him in the comfort of our own home.

Step Down and Smiles

Today has been a much more encouraging day. John had a great night and by 11am he had his chest tube pulled, lower oxygen settings in place and pending orders to move to the floor. By mid-afternoon he was out of the ICU! 3 nights in intensive care is much more manageable than 31, let me tell you! And the best news of all is that John has been acting more like himself. He gave Andrew and I smiles today! It has been SO encouraging to see more of our little boy’s personality coming back. We knew he was in there. He’s still dealing with pain and discomfort so we appreciate your continued prayers for relief and good rest. Our nurse practitioner said the words “Wednesday discharge” but we’re trying not to get our hopes up. Thanks be to God!

 

Slow Day

It’s been a slow day, and therefore frustrating. We had hoped for more progress, especially the removal of John’s supplementary oxygen and drainage tube, but that didn’t happen today. John has alternated between sleep and fussiness. He’s feeling a lot of pain and discomfort, and that’s been hard to watch. We’re praying for relief from this and a better day tomorrow. Thanks for praying with us.

Much To Be Grateful For

We are now past the critical 24 hours post-op period and John is doing very well.  The doctors and nurses told us things would move forward much quicker than last time with this surgery and we are so glad they were right!  Today his nurses turned off a lot of his medicines, removed the pacing from his heart, removed his catheter, and removed one of his big lines. We even got to hold him and he started taking a bottle!  He was hungry and was so excited to get to eat.  He’s done remarkably well and we are praising God tonight for a smooth recovery (except for that one incident last night).  Thank you for your prayers!  Please continue to pray for rest, his pain and for everything to continue moving forward.

 

A Better Morning

John came through the rest of the night without incident, and the team removed his breathing tube this morning, so we’re all feeling better. John is lightly sedated. He cries from time to time, and is clearly feeling some discomfort. We’re able to touch him and talk to him, and I’m pretty sure he smiled when he heard my voice this morning. We heard a bit more about the event last night, when John coded due to a clot in his breathing tube. The doctors told us that this unfortunately happens sometimes and assured us that John is unlikely to experience any continuing consequences now that it’s all over. We’re optimistic that John will continue to improve over the course of the day, moving us closer to the floor (a step down from intensive care) and then home. Our main prayer today is for John to experience relief from the pain and fear of this stage of recovery.

Please Pray

Andrew and I were feeling good about John’s progress so we left the hospital to grab dinner. While we were out we got a call from the doctor.  John’s heart rate and O2 sats dropped very suddenly.  The team had to rush in and do chest compressions for about 2 minutes.  They found that some mucus had blocked the breathing tube.  Once they took the old one out and put a new one in he started doing much better and he is stable at the moment.  Because of this, they are going to postpone extubating.  If he continues to do well they may take out the breathing tube in the middle of the night or tomorrow morning.  The sooner the better.

This was another scary, sobering episode.  We’d appreciate your prayers for no more trouble with his breathing tonight.  Please also pray that this wouldn’t delay or throw off his hospital stay.

A Successful Surgery

We just spoke with John’s surgeon, who told us that the surgery was a success and we’ll be able to see John in about an hour.  There was an episode during which John’s heart beat arrhythmically (this seems to have been part of the reason the surgery took longer than anticipated), but the team was able to correct the problem by putting John on partial bypass, and the surgeon didn’t seem very concerned about it.  We’re thankful for this good report and can’t wait to see John soon.  Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers.  Please continue to pray for a quick and full recovery.  Thanks be to God!

We’re On For Surgery

We are glad to report that John’s surgery is on for tomorrow. It may sound funny to hear that we are pleased about this but pushing it back would have only made us more anxious; as I’ve mentioned, it is clear to us that he needs this surgery now. This is a huge blessing and answer to prayer, especially in light of the fact that we all thought we were getting colds at the beginning of the week! At our long pre-op appointment today John got all checked out and cleared. We will take him to the hospital at 6:00am and they will take him back around 7 to start the anesthesia. The operation will take a couple hours. If all goes well, he will be off the breathing tube by the time he leaves the OR and he may even be able to eat by tomorrow night.

We are settled into the Ronald McDonald House (another answer to prayer!) and the kids are about to go to my best friend’s in law’s house (thanks a million, Kristin and Daniel, Tom and Sylvie!). We are tired but hopeful. Please pray that the Lord would guide the surgeon’s hands tomorrow morning. Please also pray against any unforeseen issues with surgery and against any infection.

We’ll update as soon as we can. We love you all!