Wes’s surgery officially began at 9:15, and it took until about 11:15 for them to access the heart and get him on bypass. The CT scan yesterday had revealed that a portion of the atria had become adhered to the chest through scar tissue, so the surgeons did what they needed to relative to that. We hear there was some bleeding that they quickly took care of. After the “he’s on bypass and okay” update from the Nurse Liason we went to get our parent badges and walked to The Mission for lunch. We got an update there that everything was progressing fine, and the phone rang again about 1:15 when we entered the hospital lobby to tell us that he was off bypass and Dr. Emani was ready to talk to us.

We saw him at about 1:45 and he told us how well things went. He was able to place a 22cm pulmonary conduit. What he took out was only about 9-10cm effective diameter. So this is a big improvement. Six years ago they had used an aortic homograft due to size, but the aortic variety will calcify much more quickly than a pulmonary homograft. Fun fact. So with a larger size and the pulmonary…type?… Wes should be in really good shape. Dr. Emani seemed pretty jazzed about the arc of this particular conduit. He also placed a (basically Gortex) membrane between the heart and chest wall to lessen the “sticking” for next time Wes’s heart needs access. True Avenger-style for Wes.

We’re about to head up to the cardiac ICU, and they think they’ll be able to take out the breathing tube later today so we’re anticipating one of us staying the night at the hospital starting tonight. In Wes’s words the other day, “Dad will get to stay with me first because Mom got to stay with me in October.” While we’re both sick of sleeping on the apartment’s pull-out sofa and are looking forward to sleeping in the apartment’s actual bed, we’re so happy it went well that yes, Wesley, we GET to stay with you.