Heart Surgery

Well on Friday Angela went to see her cardiologist and found out that her AICD (pacemaker) had a nearly dead battery and was likely to stop functioning in the next couple of weeks. Although her doctor did give us an option to wait on replacement he did say that it would not be feasible to do so until approx. 6months postpartum; which is a great deal of time to have Angela at risk for sudden cardiac arrest as had happened initially to have the device placed. Though both of us are skeptical of Angela's initial diagnosis and not too concerned that an episode would occur after speaking with the O.B. we decided the risk to the baby and the pregnancy was much more minimal than the risk and consequences should Angela have any heart complications in the next 9months. We called the cardiologist back on Friday afternoon and said we would go forward with the surgery and when was he thinking he would fit us in so we could make arrangements? Minutes later we got a call back and were told to be at the hospital at 10am Monday morning for surgery.

It was a very scary situation this time around as well as bit awkward for Angela as the surgery had to be done where she works and she has never really talked about having the device in the first place at work; but that is life and we both new we would get through it! The surgery itself took just about an hour and we were able to leave the hospital by 4:30pm, a long day but much preferred to having to stay overnight. Her surgeon informed us both that her previous surgeon had implanted her device VERY deep under the muscle and due to the size change between her original surgery and her 2nd one the device had actually slid down quite significantly. This caused a great deal of trouble in getting the old device out. As her surgeon put it--- "It was EXTREMELY deep and I had to dig around in there A TON. Please know that you are going to be EXTRAORDINARILY sore for about 7-10 days and I have talked to your OB about what stronger pain meds you can take though I know you will be stubborn and just do Tylenol you might want to reconsider."

Well, Angela's new device is in- he had to make yet another incision so she now has 3 scars across her chest which is a bit of a bummer but doesn't look like this one will show too badly. The baby pulled through the surgery just fine. They sent up a nurse from O.B. to check fetal heart tones both before and immediately following the surgery and her O.B. was on direct call to be there for any issues. It turned out the nurse they sent up was actually Angela's clinical instructor from when she took O.B. and the nurse who, well, basically delivered Maezyn for us so that was comforting to Angela to have a familiar and comforting face there for her!

Well, Nana got on a flight first thing Saturday morning and so she has been here taking care of the boys preventing Angela from doing any lifting at all as we all know she would force herself to do without Nana here preventing her. Nana has been preparing meals, taking care of the boys, and helping the house stay together as much as is possible with two toddlers. She will be here until Saturday but we think she probably already getting worn down with the energy level of our guys-- Thank goodness for good Nana's!!!!

As for the pain and recovery, Angela has been being pretty strong but smart about it too. She know that next week she is essentially cold turkey back on her own with the boys so she is actually trying to get her rest while she can and truly give herself recovery time. She has been alternating every 6hrs between Tylenol and just 1 tablet of her stronger prescribed pain med. She tries to take the prescription at 10pm for the night and then 10am for the day! She has done that since 4pm on Monday and then today (Wed) she has switched over to taking the tylenol every 8 hours and plans to just take the prescription at bedtime ONLY. She has been a trooper but is very concerned with too much meds and the baby so is trying to be reasonable about what she takes. She hopes to be off the meds completely by Friday with the rare tylenol for any breakthrough pain!

Thank you for all of you who had us in your thoughts as we got through this challenging time we are very thankful that everything went smoothly and we are able to move on without having the lingering "what if" concerns following us. Angela's cardiologist here is also working very hard to get insurance approval to have genetic testing done so we can get to the bottom of what her heart condition is and make sure that all 3 of our boys are safe as well!