The Glenn was a success!

This morning I woke to have some important (although brief) time with God in preparation for today and even though I keep those moments private, chose to share that prayer with my FB friends and this is what it stated:

"but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." Isaiah 40:31

Lord I lift up my son to You on this special day. The creator of all things including his sweet little life yet it's not so little! You have a purpose for him and today many people play a role in that story. We lift up the doctors, nurses and other staff who will be players in your plan. I pray for wisdom, energy and clarity as they start their day. I pray for Ashley and I to have full confidence in You throughout the day. We pray for strength to the family who will support all of us through this day. Most of all, I pray for the wisdom to see your plan and my role in it with everything we come across today and in the future. You have a plan for our little man and Ashley and I thank you for the honor in being a part of it!
Amen

All I can say is...God answered our prayers today :)

I sit here tonight after a very long day of just waiting and even though Ashley and I are worn out we are so overwhelmed with joy for a successful day!  I arrived around 7:30 am today after having the night at home with the girls, Skip and Lori along with Erica, Chris and Audrey.  Even though Dr. Kaza had already come up to see Ashley, he made a point to swing in prior to us delivering Landen downstairs just so he could touch base with me as well.  What a blessing it was to have our son's surgeon care so much for the importance of communication with his patients parents.  While he was walking us through his process, he made sure that we understood that it would likely take about 4-5 hours for the entirety of the procedure and that 3 hours would be spent "under the knife".

Just around 8am we transported Landen down to the pre-operation room for his prep.  The reality was that they were more than ready for him when we arrived as his procedure was much anticipated among the staff here.  We walked through the procedure one more time, signed our last forms and handed our little man over to the more than capable staff here at Childrens Hospital.

Ashley and Landen the morning of the Bi-directional Glenn Procedure

I wont share all the details as they happened as most of you don't likely care about them.  But the short version is that we received word around 10am that they had started his incision, at 11:15 they started bypass and by 12 he was off bypass and being closed up (almost two hours ahead of schedule).  In the words of our surgeon "Landen is a strong boy, and likes to get things done fast".  As a side note and another reason why I love Dr Kaza so much is that not only did he know the exact minutes he kept Landen on bypass during this surgery (30 minutes), he also had the exact time he had Landen on bypass with the previous surgery at the top of his memory (16 minutes).  The rest of the report from Dr Kaza was fantastic.  Landen did have some collateral vessels as we already knew, but no issues are expected from those.  His pressures were great across the PA vessels (superior vena cava) and they chose to leave his pulmonary artery attached to the heart as his blood flow was already so restricted that only a slight flow was being allowed through (hence the fact his saturation was dipping into the 50-40s!). Now the only problem with looking up the standard procedures for Landen is that he is very unique and when you look up the Glen on the internet it will talk about many things that were not possible/necessary with his anatomy, but if you would like to know more about the standard process you can read more here.

The remainder of the day till this evening was a waiting game to watch Landen settle into his new anatomy.  I think the most impressive and frankly unexpected thing for Ashley and I was to see his color much more uniform.  He has pink cheeks and feet. No more purple/blue feet due to poor circulation.  He is also sitting at a constant 85-88 percent oxygen saturation which as you know, is a REALLY big improvement for him.  For now the plan is to start removing his breathing tube and get him to slowly wake up and see how that goes through the night.  This is always the most difficult thing to watch.  As he starts to come to, he will likely have a headache from the additional pressure back to his brain (his body will get used to it and was anticipated side effect due to the fact that his heart is no longer pulling blood from his head and arms as that blood flow is directly draining to the lungs).  What makes this process worse is the soar throat he will have and lack of ability to cry while his breathing tube is in.  There is just something so sad to see your child cry but have no sound coming out :(

These are all just necessary steps in the journey to a long healthy life for Landen.  So far, he is just making fantastic strides.  He will slowly start to enter into a normal life again, but with much better support for his circulation and heart (less stress on his heart).  We will know more tomorrow, but for today we are blessed to say he made it!  We are so thankful for all of your prayers, well wishes and thoughts as your support really means a ton to us all (and frankly the only reason we continue to write this silly blog!).

Enjoying the journey,
George, Ashley, Maddie, Lyla and Landen!