Friday, October 17, 2008

Update on Life

Many of you may already know this, but we have finally scheduled open heart surgery for Trae. We will be going in on December 10th, and we are told that he will be there anywhere from 3-5 days. That seems a little short to me for having major surgery, but we'll see how things go. The surgery itself will take about 4-5 hours. Basically what they are going to do is remove the part of the muscle that has thickened, and they are hoping that that will correct the other problems that go along with this diagnosis, such as his mitral vavle leaking.
I have tried to talk to Trae about what is going on, and what is going to happen, but I'm not sure he understands. At this point, he seems to be more curious about his medication, and why he has to take it and not Luke. (Luke keeps telling me that his heart is beating too hard, and he needs some too!) I knew that day would come, when I would have to explain what is wrong and why he has to take medicine every day. When I imagined being a parent, this was one thing that I did not imagine. I think before I really sit down and tell him what is really going to happen, I'll wait until the surgery date is closer. I don't want to freak him out when we still have 2 months to wait....I just can't believe this is actually happening.
So, for me, my goal right now is to just finish the semester. I already talked to my instructor about taking my final early. I am actually going through my cardiac rotation while dealing with the cardiologist and surgeon, so it has been very overwhelming. The day after Trae got an echo and I talked with his cardiologist about surgery, I actually had to walk out of class. I was sitting there, almost in tears, and I just knew I could not handle listening to a 3 hour lecture about heart failure that day! So, I didn't.
My second goal is to get all my Christmas shopping done before the surgery. But we'll see if that one actually happens!