Tomorrow...

Well, we all spent this day at Arkansas Children's Hospital getting James checked out and learning all about the surgery he will be having tomorrow morning.  It was a long day, but not too bad.  What we learned didn't scare us too much, either.

So, please be praying for James tomorrow.

His surgery is set to start at 7am and run until sometime around noon.  The first hour will consist of getting him to sleep and plugging in lots of different IV lines and breathing tubes.  After all of that, the doctors will get him on the heart/lung machine so they can bypass his heart and get it still to work on it.  They will administer some sort of high-potassium medicine to get the heart to stop beating.  They will cut into the right atrium and put in a patch made of Gore-Tex, fixing it to cover the hole between his two ventricles.  After that is done, they will bring his heart back on and hook his blood vessels back up so that blood starts flowing through it like normal.  Then, using a device lowered down his esophagus, they will take an echo-cardiogram to see if the blood is flowing correctly and the hole is fully closed.  They told us that there is a chance that it won't be entirely closed and might need a little more work after the heart is brought back on-line.  After that, he will be brought out of surgery and we will get to see him.  He will likely be on a ventillator for the rest of tomorrow and overnight and in ICU for several days.

We will be using this blog to keep everyone up-to-date with how things are going with James.  So, please check here often.

We love you all!