Travis Surgery

Well, we are home after a long and rough weekend. Travis had his surgery on Friday. We got to San Antonio Thursday early so that we could make the best of the fact that we had to go so far. We went to the Alamo and to the Ripley's museum and the Wax museum and to the River Walk area and road the little tour boat things. We really had a lot of fun. Thank the Lord, cuz Friday was not so good at all. We had to be to the hospital at 0630 Friday morning and then they finally called him back to check him in at about 0730. They then got him all ready to go back for surgery at about 0845. The first hour or so wasn't too bad, they came out and told us that they were getting started and then they came back out and told us that he was freezing the area and then about an hour or so later they came back again and said that they were burning some area's. Burning?? They weren't supposed to have to do that. I knew then that something wasn't quite right. Around 1300 the doctor came out himself and had this piece of paper in his hand and it had all of these different colors on it. James and Trevor had just gone down to get some lunch at this point. So, anyhow, he told me that he was not able to get to the area, so he tried to get something to happen with the burning thing, they still could not get anything to change. He did say that he tried to stimulate his heart so that it would make the top fibrillate (or something like that) and that he never could. This is a good thing and he also tried to get it to do something else, and couldn't. Good again. When he stimulated it to try to get it to do the loop thing where it goes through the normal pathway and then loops back up through the extra pathway (this is what would cause him to have a heart attack) he could only get it to do one loop. This is very good. So, back to the not being able to get the pathway frozen or burned, it is in the back of the heart very close to the normal pathway. He was not able to get to it, he even went across the heart where he originally said that he probably would not do. He tried his very best and just could not get it. What a horrible blow! So, Travis comes out of surgery to the recovery room and he is in the pediatric ward, which was not a good thing. He was a bit irritable to say the least, there was a younger child crying and Travis is getting ticked, "can't they shut that kid up?" I almost died! So, then he gets sick and when he is throwing up he ends up opening up the incision area on the right side. He was bleeding pretty good so they had to put pressure on it, it was horrible! The nurse was putting so much pressure on it and it was hurting him so bad, I have never seen my child in so much pain before. What an awful thing to not be able to do anything to help other than rub his forehead and hold his hand. They finally got it stopped after doing this for about 20 minutes or so and then put a pressure dressing on it. He was very in and out of it and the nurse guy was on the phone with the nurses on the floor where he was going to stay the night at and when he was talking to them he told them that it was an unsuccessful procedure. I almost died! Travis didn't know yet, he wasn't supposed to find out until the doctor came in when he was upstairs in his room. Travis opened his eyes and said "what?" I just looked at him and couldn't say a word. He then looked at me straight in the eyes and said "it didn't work?" "No honey, I am so sorry" was all that I could say. It was such a hard thing to tell him that he was not "fixed" now. The look in his eyes was a mixture of sadness, disappointment and anger. What an awful feeling it was. I wanted to get up and punch that stinking nurse in the gizzard! I was so ticked! What a horrible way for my baby to find that out! So, then they take him upstairs to his room for the night and tell him that he has to be completely still for another two hours. Well at this point he is mad and hurts not just physically, but emotionally too. He would come in and out of it, he would wake up and ask "what time is it?" "4:47" "What? That's it?" Yes honey" doze off, wake up "What time is it now?" "4:53" "That's it?" "Yes honey" So after this went on nearly every five minutes for about half and hour and him getting angrier every time, I finally said "why don't you go to sleep and wake up every five minutes and ask what time it is and then get mad at me and then go back to sleep until 6:00?" He was getting mean and hateful. I had to send James and Trevor out of the room for a bit, James was getting mad because Travis was being so hateful. I figured that I could handle his hatefulness, but I couldn't handle them going at it. He was so angry, but who could blame him? My dads cousin came in, her grandson is there in the NICU ward, and when she walked out Travis said "who in the hell was that?" I almost died! Thank goodness she didn't hear him, I know that it was because he was hurting but it didn't excuse it. So, anyhow, he finally was able to move and get up and go to the bathroom and the doctor came in and talked to him. He explained what all he tried to do and that he gives Travis a .1% chance of ever having anything go wrong, like heart failure. He said that after doing all of the tests that he couldn't say that he was low risk, but he most definitely is not high risk. He wrote Travis a letter basically clearing him for duty so that he should hopefully not have any issues going active duty. We will see. So, that is it in a nut shell. I would like to say thank you to everyone who has called, sent text messages, kept us in their thoughts and most of all in their prayers. Thank you everyone for all of your help! (Thanks for keeping the dogs Tina!)