We are DONE!!

Ella Grace was simply amazing!! Her heart is repaired and we are back at home! The surgery went great, the PDA was plugged with a metal coil, and immediately was completely closed. The doctor was so nice, I'm sure he could tell I was a nervous wreck, and after the procedure he led us back to his little doctor's room in surgery and showed us all of the pictures and videos of her heart that were taken from inside, (which is pretty cool.)

While in closing her heart the doctor searched around the rest of the heart to make sure everything was okay (the way this whole thing started was Ella had an upper GI test done because of her reflux. During that test they thought they saw her aorta bulging into her esophagus, so an echo was ordered. During the echo they saw that her PDA was still open though we had been told at 3 months that it had closed. Anyhow the doctors decided they would check out the aorta from inside the heart to double check that it was not bulging into the esophagus.) So while exploring around the heart the doctor found an abnormality, Ella has an Anomalous Right Subclavian from the Descending Aorta (at least that's what I think the doctor's drawing and explanation of the heart says, can't really read his handwriting : ) what does that mean? Well, Ella's heart has 4 branches off of the aorta while the "normal" heart has 3, and Ella's extra one goes from left to right behind the aorta and wraps around her esophagus. Anyhow, the doctor assured me that this was not cause for concern and that no surgery is needed. If she were to ever have problems with this it would have already happened, she wouldn't be able to eat, which obviously is not a problem for my chunky monkey. The doc said we don't even have to have it checked on, just something that is nice to know. Does that make any sense to any of you, cause it doesn't to me? All I know is I'm not supposed to worry about it, so I'm good.

I of course had my trusty camera with me at the hospital today! Ella was really excited to play in the waiting room!

Ella was pretty funny at the beginning, they gave her an oral medication that made her loopy and lethargic. By the time they took her back she was fighting to keep her eyes open so wasn't upset at all at leaving mom behind. Me on the other hand, sobbing like a baby.

Right when the medicine

started kicking in.

She kept staring at her

hand like she couldn't

figure out what it was.

It's getting hard to sit up.

Lost the paci.

This is after 6 failed

attempts at starting

an IV

Finally success

In all Ella was only separated from me for a little over an hour.

She was quite upset when I arrived in recovery, I'm sure she

was scared and felt weird. She had that very raspy voice from

just having the breathing tube taken out. It took about 10 minutes

to calm her down, only after they finally let me hold her.

Here we are in our own room. Ella had to lay completely flat with her knees pinned down so the slits in her arteries in her thigh would not bleed, for 3 and a half hours. She at one point spiked a fever, but it was gone within 15 minutes.

The best part of it was when she got to eat, of course!

Hooray for grilled cheese!!

And here we are leaving, she REFUSED to be carried.

And here she is starting to run

which of course was my cue to turn

off camera and pick her up.

Seriously? Running after a heart procedure? Isn't she amazing??? Now comes the big challenge, no running or jumping for 48 hours, HA HA HA. Oh yeah, and no bath for 48 hours, I guess so her sites in her thigh don't become infected, they don't even have stitches. Do they realize how bad this kid is going to smell, hopefully it's not an especially barfy drooly next 2 days. Ella gets to go back to school on Friday according to the doctor, pretty incredible!! Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers!!!