Open Heart Surgery: Day One

Knowing where you've come from helps to understand the journey you've taken, to remember the challenges you've faced in the hope you'll never have to take that path again. This is Reuben's second open heart surgery, the first being at 3 months old. It is also his 18th surgery.

After a quite torturous journey, his heart has been repaired. Before surgery, there was an emergency situation when he could not be intubated (breathing tube through to his lungs attached to the ventilator). I spent a torturous night after thinking, What if?

We were notified at every stage of the surgery, when his ribcage was opened up, when his heart was stopped and he went on bypass, when his heart was (thank God) restarted. Afterwards I hugged the surgeon, the same Dr who was involved in his first open heart surgery.

In this image, his sternum has been opened up and then glued back together with metal pins holding his ribs together, he has chest tubes draining blood from his lungs and heart and he is still on the ventilator which is breathing for him pending a scope again in the operating room (OR) tomorrow in which we hope to decipher the cause of the trauma before surgery. The worst outcome from that will be that he will require a tracheostomy again.

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