Sixth Update from Jeff

We are almost 48 hours since surgery ended, and Abigail is stable and doing well. Her chest remains open, and will not be closed until tomorrow, Halloween. This wasn’t exactly the Halloween Party we had planned, but we’ll take it. Although she won’t be able to wear that cute orange and black Halloween tutu that we had bought her that sits at home in her empty nursery, we are grateful that this Halloween party at Lucile Packard will be about her continued recovery. The sooner they can close the chest, the sooner she can get the ventilator and other tubes out of her body. That sooner that happens, the sooner she can begin to eat.

One of the concerns with infants who go through this kind of an ordeal is that they often won’t breastfeed after the experience. The longer they go without having to exercise the sucking motion, the less likely they are to expend the energy to get mama’s milk later. The various tubes in her mouth and nose can irritate and make the throat sore, which makes eating unattractive to many infants in similar situations. Dr. Reddy was relieved that Abigail did seem to take the bottle and pacifier between birth and surgery. She wasn’t ever allowed to drink much milk at any given time, so we still don’t know how well she’ll take to eating, particularly breastfeeding, but we’re crossing our fingers.

Below is a picture of Dr. Reddy and me. Apparently, he gets embarrassed in front of a camera, and when I asked him if I could get a picture for Abby’s scrapbook he began to object, but I couldn’t understand what he was saying through his thick Indian accent, so I basically ignored the objections and continued to grab my camera out of its bag. He said, “We’ll do this when all the tubes are out,” which I thought meant, “You can take a picture of Abigail when all the tubes are out.”

“No, it’s okay,” I "reassured" him, “I want a picture of you, not the baby.” He kept objecting but I ignored him, confident that I didn’t need his permission to take a picture of my baby. I grabbed the camera, then handed it to the nurse, and told this world-renowned Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Stanford exactly where I wanted him to stand for the picture: excuse me, Doctor, would you turn your head slightly to the left?

By this point, he had surrendered, probably realizing that resistance was futile. It wasn’t until after he left the room that the nurse, smiling, told me that Dr. Reddy gets embarrassed in front of a camera, and that he was trying to communciate that he would like to take the picture when “he is prepared for it” and when he can hold Abigail for a pose in front of the camera. I’ve been chuckling ever since, which, of course, makes this photo all the more memorable for Abigail’s scrapbook.

I’ll update you tomorrow with details on the closing of the chest. I may throw up a new video tonight of Abigail awake in the her home at the CVICU, which I've decided to rename the HICU (the Heart Intensive Care Unit as opposed to the Cardio Vascular ICU) as it's much easier to say like the NICU. I also may elaborate later on an unexpected and strange feeling of melancholy that Lisa and I had following the surgery.

The amount of equipment needed to take care of one baby