And the big day has arrived and now it's gone...

Hello Everyone,

Good evening, it's now 10:30pm and I have finally sat down a bit to update this blog... WHAT A DAY!!!!!!! Where do I start????

First, last night I was not able to sleep very well at all for obvious reasons...I was waking up every hour, tossing and turning...then at 4am I got a strange series of leg cramps on a muscle in my leg I never knew I had...ehheh...they would not go away...probably pregnancy related! Then I could not go back to sleep again and only took naps here and there until approx 7am...

By 7:30am Luca was up and wanted milk...he could not drink anything except clear liquids at that point so we gave him 8oz of apple juice and he drank it ALL...wow, what a treat apple juice right away early in the am, he never gets that...eheheh...he enjoyed it... We were trying to hide each and every food item that we had brought so that he would not ask to eat anything. He did great and did not even care to ask for food, maybe all that juice filled him up well...

So we got ready and left the hotel by 8:45am. By 9am we were back to surgery admitting where they took him in for a final check-up and got him into his hospital PJ's...after that we were directed to the surgery playroom where we had to wait for a while but Luca did not seem to mind since it's a nice room with all kinds of toys and play areas...he had fun...poor little guy, had no clue what was ahead of him!

Then we waited there for a long while, they got really delayed for some reason...he was called again around 11am and we took him to a surgery waiting area where they put him already into a bed and gave him a "happy pill" which in actuality was a liquid that apparently is so bitter that he managed to spit most of it out...but his stomach was so empty at this point that any little portion that he was able to swallow already gave him the "groggy" effect...he was so funny and drunk looking then, his eyes were half shut and he kept laughing and laughing at everything, totally easy going and mellow....so not Luca...eeheheh... So at this point the anesthesiologist doctor came to explain to us what the procedures of anesthesia were, risks, etc...very nice doctor with a confident and experienced yet sweet personality who told us that her son's name is Lucas and she was going to take great care of Luca as if he were her little Lucas ;o) That connection right there kinda touched my heart and it put me at great peace for some reason... So she asks us to follow her to the hallway where she finally asked us to try to say our goodbyes quickly....that's always the harrrrrrd part for me... Gaetano and I quickly kissed him and told him we loved him VERY much and the doctor took him in her arms then...they turned the corner so fast and in a flash we could no longer see him… So difficult…at that point I AGAIN could no longer hold it and started sobbing…Gaio did his fair share of crying at this point too and we hugged so tight for a long while! TOUGHHHHHH….

We went back downstairs to find waiting for us my wonderful cousin Ligia and her mom Elvira who is visiting from Brazil….what a blessing to have them both here with us today…we were able to talk, get distracted, eat and pass the time that way while Luca was in surgery…THANK YOU LIGIA AND ELVIRA SOOOO MUCH FOR COMING TO SUPPORT US TODAY…IT MEANT A LOT TO US!!! :o)

We also had the visit of Carolyn Spangler today who is another wonderful heart mom with a heart of gold herself, who taught and still teaches us sooooo much about heart kiddos….THANK YOU CAROLYN FOR YOUR VISIT AND FOR EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS DO FOR US!!!

Our great guests stayed with us most of the day and provided me with some much needed girl/adult talk which was absolutely wonderful for me psychologically in so many ways…THANK YOU GIRLS! ;o)

At around 2:45pm Gaio tells me that Dr. Starnes (Luca’s surgeon) is in the hallways and we ran out there and we started talking to him asking how everything went…he had a nice smile on his face and said everything went great, he fixed what he had to fix, rerouted both veins to the correct side of the heart and Luca was doing wonderful…oh boy, at that moment he had just lifted 1000 pounds off our shoulders…I asked him if I could give him a hug (of course, I am Brazilian, we hug everyone…eheheh) and he was so nice and humble to say yes … another emotional moment for Gaio and I ;o)

Now at 3pm they tell us to wait at the hallways so we can quickly see him coming out of the OR before they take him into the CTICU…we did that and it was great for us to at least quickly get a glimpse of him and touch his hair for 2 seconds…the anesthesiologist doctor at this point also tells us that everything went great and that now it would take another 45min-1hr to get him settled at the ICU.

At 4pm we finally can go in and we stayed with him until 7pm…some very hard sights to see with him still sedated and intubated and with all kinds of tubes and lines coming and going from all directions… not easy at all…no kid should have to go thru this and no parent should have to see their kid suffer like this…horrible…

At around 7pm we went to get something to eat, when we came back to see him another doctor was there to already extubate him…great news…but so hard to watch because he started to wake up a bit, get a little restless and moving around a lot…he heard my voice and I think he got even more agitated because of that… I had to sit down and step away a bit from his hospital bed because it was too hard to see him suffer so much …his little arms are tied down to the bed so he can’t move much and that is also a terrible site…anyways…after that he got settled again, they gave him some more sedatives and morphine and he seemed to be calm and sleeping again… At 9pm we left him with his nurse to get some sleep ourselves, they told us to rest because tomorrow it’s going to be a full day away… and here we are trying to rest now…

I should get going… as usual I normally write too much…but this is also like a diary for me and it helps me to get things out ;o)

Thanks for ALLLLLLL the messages and prayers again…we are so blessed to be inundated with them coming from all of you…THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH…you guys don’t even imagine how much your love and support is helping us go thru this…

We’ll keep you posted… please keep your prayers for a speedy recovery now!

Love, kisses and hugs,

Helo ;o)