Reflecting on Samuel's surgery

“We’re going to stop his heart, of course,” Laura, the pre-op nurse informed us the day before Samuel’s surgery. We looked at each other nervously. Stop his heart? It made sense, but we had never considered it before. “But don’t worry,” she assured us. “We’ll keep it cool and take good care of it.”

Our last six months have been filled with disconcerting revelations.
On April 16, we took our six month old Samuel to UCSF Children’s Hospital in San Francisco for open-heart surgery. We didn’t want to rush the operation, because his oxygen levels had been fine. No hurry. But then the cardiologist gave us another scary fact. “His valve is alot worse than we thought. It’s a good thing we’re doing this now.”

How much worse? Bad enough that the surgeon had to “remake” has valve with Sam’s own tissue. I’m thankful I don’t understand how that works because it sounds scary.

You should have seen him when the nurse took him from us. He was smiling at all the staff. So happy. So clueless...

We waited in a calm room with couches, a fish tank, and a noisy family of another patient. The mom tried to reassure us. He will be fine, just like her daughter. We grabbed lunch and a cup of Pete’s Coffee from the cafeteria. Two more hours. More waiting. We sent out some text messages. Sara took a nap while I read a spy novel. Another hour.

Finally, it hit me: I should be a basket case. My perfect little boy is having his most vital organ cut open by a band of masked strangers, and I feel almost nothing! Am I really that cold blooded?

The question haunted me during Sam’s first week of recovery. Yeah, I had a few moments of subtle panic, like when I looked up at his Vitals monitor. We had been watching alot of medical dramas, you know, and the only time they show the Vitals monitor is when a patient goes into cardiac arrest. (Advice: lay off your Dr. House addiction if you are about to go into surgery. You’ve been warned.) But those moments were notable exceptions to our paradoxical peace. It defied understanding, just like it’s supposed to.

Sam’s recovery has been quick and complete. Yes, he might need another operation in 5 to 10 years, but for now our little boy is happy totally fixed. Your prayers helped do all of this. They quickened the surgeon, protected the patient, and calmed our pounding hearts, even while his was totally still.