Pictures of January 13th: Day of Surgery...

This is more or less how our day went....


Family photo still in our room at the Ronald McDonald House... right before we left for the hospital. By coincidence both Gaetano and I were wearing green... that actually means "hope" in Brazil ;o)

With daddy still in the room... Luca had a t-shirt on that said "Tough Guy" ;o)

Playing around here at the "Surgery Admitting" waiting area...

Get me outta here, Mamma! ........ I wish I could, baby... I really wish...

Now Luca is already wearing his tiger hospital PJ's after he had already gone thru another quick pre-op visit...

Playing around with lots of toys at the "Surgery Waiting" playroom...

Another family photo still at the same playroom... waiting to be called... here we waited and waited quite a bit...things got delayed that day with the previous surgery of the baby that went before Luca so we had to wait for a while...that long wait just added to our stress and anxiety, of course! But again, we were trying really hard to smile...

Here we were finally called to this other "waiting" area where they put Luca into a hospital bed and he was then calmly watching some tv... He also found a Mr. Potato Head here which was sitting in a counter a few feet from us and he absolutely had to have it... He would not let go of it... he even took it to the OR...ehehe

Waiting with daddy...

Waiting with mamma...and still watching tv...there was a lot of waiting that day...

I could not stop kissing him at this point... It was so hard to let go...

This was right after they gave him some medicine to "relaxxxxxxxx"... so funny to look at him giggle away, in a total zen mood and with his "drunk" eyes... He mostly spit out all this medication because it was so bitter but the little that got into his empty stomach already did the trick :o)

Again playing around and giggling away with daddy... Luca was soooo funny here after taking this medication...the "happy pill" as they call it, but it was actually a pink liquid... I forgot the actual name of the med...

And now....No comments..... Out of surgery...

It's hard sometimes for most people to imagine how huge these types of surgeries are until maybe they see pictures like these...Maybe it might have sounded for some that I was making too much of a big deal out of all this but looking at this picture we can truly understand that it indeed WAS a HUUUUUUGE deal and also sooooooo risky... God really helped our sweet Luca so much to bravely fight this fight like a true warrior... ;o)

This is showing Luca's bed already at the CTICU...still with the breathing tubes and all...very overwhelming picture to look at...this was taken at 8pm... he got out of surgery around 3pm... notice how he has his legs crossed already...ehehhe...it was actually very interesting to see that...only 5 hrs after he got out of the OR he already started moving a bit and got into such a "comfortable" position with his legs...it almost seemed as he was on a nice warm beach soaking up the sun...eheheh... only Luca can take such a thing so lightly...What a brave little fighter I have...that's my boy!! ;o)

All the medications he was on right after surgery... along with the computer showing all his numbers... again, very overwhelming...

Daddy and Mommy looking "great" after that BIG HUGE HEAVY CARGO TRAIN passed over us again... After seeing our baby in the conditions above I could not hold back my heaviest tears...very difficult moment!! But at least at this point too we were very relieved that everything was going so well...