Preparing for Surgery

We had a good night last night.  Blake and I were able to lie down at 8:30 and although we didn't sleep long stretches, it was such a blessing to be off our feet all night.  Everett slept great.  He is on tube feedings every 3 hours and each feeding takes 1.5 hours.  He already has much better coloring and his cheeks are filling out again.  Today he got an IV and all of his pre-op labs drawn.  The IV team starts all of the IVs here and Everett's nurse was awesome! She got it on the first try.  Little man screamed a long time and his heart rate went up to 198 which scared us a little. He wore himself out and slept the rest of the morning.  The nurse practitioner met with us and went over the plan for tomorrow. Everett will stop getting feedings at 4:00am and will only have IV fluids after that.  It will be hard to console a hungry infant from 4am until ???- whenever they start surgery.  We are supposed to be ready at 10:00 am to go to pre-op and then Everett will go to the OR from there.  We will be able to walk with him all the way to the door of the OR and then kiss him before they take him from us into surgery.  I'm tearing up now just thinking about how hard it will be to hand him over.  God keeps reminding me that he will never leave Everett and that he will be holding him the entire time.  More capable hands can not be found.

We will wait in the ICU waiting room until he is out of surgery.  We have been told to prepare for 6 hours but it could be as short as 4 hours.  We will try to update everyone tomorrow as we hear updates from the surgical team.  After surgery, Everett will go to the ICU for 2-3 days and then back to the cardiac floor.  We had a tour of the ICU today. Only one person can stay overnight with Everett in the ICU, but there are chairs that convert to beds in the waiting room so we plan to trade off depending on how he is doing.  Right now, they are doing another echo on his heart. We are told that the last thing they will do today is scrub his chest for surgery.  Seems strange to start cleaning him this early but they will scrub it gain tomorrow morning.m they say it has been proven to help prevent infections.

Blake's mom and dad are here with us and my parents will arrive this evening with Eli.  We will try to rest as much as possible before the big day.  Please continue to pray for Everett that he will rest tonight and not get too hungry.  Pray that his IV and feeding tube will stay put.  Pray for the surgical team to get plenty of rest and that the surgery will go well.  Pray for Blake and me to have peace and strength.  Pray especially that we will only hear the Voice of Truth and not the lies of the Enemy as we have felt a lot of spiritual attack these past few days.  Pray that God will help us overcome our fear and trust in him in all things.  We will continue to give updates.  Thank you as always for your love and prayers.

Blake & Caroline