Surgery tomorrow

Friends/family,

We spoke with the surgeon, the cardiologist, and the Nurse Practitioner this morning and they informed us Brent's surgery will start at 8:30 am PST (11:30 am EST.) I know many of you have asked exactly what time his surgery is so you can be thinking about him and praying for him at that time, so I just wanted to give you that time update.

The team will come get him around 7:00 am for pre-op and thankfully I am able to go with him for the first hour or so. My friends from San Diego (Chris & Kelly) will be here at 7:00 am as I am sure I will be very emotional when I have to say goodbye. The surgery is expected to last between 4-6 hours. I will post updates as I receive them from the Nurse Practitioner, but the first update won't be until about 11:00 am, or 2-3 hours after they actually begin. The surgery seems to get more complicated daily, but they always reassure us it is very fixable. They are not 100% sure what the surgery will entail - the surgeon said he doesn't know for sure until he opens him up and can visualize his heart. The aneurysm is near where his pulmonary artery meets his pulmonic valve (which in his case is a conduit.) Nobody is sure what caused this, again, they will know more tomorrow after the surgery and we can go from there to prevent this from ever happening again. We'll also know more tomorrow about future restrictions and such, but everyone is thinking after his total recovery time (~3 months), he should be able to resume normal exercise. Brent is very active, loves to play sports, run, hike, etc - so we're hoping he'll still be able to do all of those things. Regardless of whether they replace the valve or simply strengthen it, he will have a stronger pulmonic valve after tomorrow. Replaced pulmonic valves can last anywhere from 10-20 years, depending on the type of valve, which is why we had been praying the past year for the next surgery to not be until at least 2017 - but here we are in 2009. We know there's a reason.

After this, he really shouldn't have to have surgery again for anywhere from 10-20 years. Please don't forget to also pray that this will be a very effective surgery and we will finally have that 20 year gap between surgeries. He definitely deserves it! Medicine will be so much more advanced in 20 years! Brent had 2 heart surgeries at the age of 2, and then other open heart surgeries at age 7, age 8, age 16, age 19, age 25, and now age 27. That doesn't take into account all of the other non-open heart surgeries he's had and various tests throughout the years - so we are REALLY praying for a 20 year gap after this. As I said, I've learned Brent is always the exception, but this time, we are convinced he is going to be the norm! Yesterday I heard the cardiologist say "I've never seen such a big aneurysm" and today I heard the surgeon say "I've only had to remove a rib twice in 15 years." It's somewhat amusing - volunteers and staff are always coming through our room asking what such a young person is doing on the Telemetry floor and then Brent tells people he's having his 8th open heart surgery - people's jaws definitely drop. :) We've been explaining a lot about Tetralogy of Fallot!

After Brent's surgery, he will experience pain, so please pray for relief for him. We'll be in the ICU for at least 24 hours (likely until Friday morning.) If anyone would like to come visit, please just let me know first so I can coordinate visits. The hospital address is: St Joseph Hospital, 1100 West Stewart Drive, Orange, CA 92868. I don't know room numbers or anything like that, but I'll let you know when I do know. We will hopefully be headed back down to San Diego on Sunday, June 28th and I'll be at home with Brent for 2-3 weeks before returning to work. Brent's new home address is 2155 1st Avenue, San Diego, CA 92101.

Thank you so much for your support and prayers. We sincerely appreciate it and are expecting a successful day tomorrow. We have a long recovery ahead of us but we're very much looking forward to August 9th! If we receive any more information, I'll post again tonight, but for now, I simply ask for prayer, prayer, prayer tomorrow from 8:00 am onward. I'll post first thing in the morning (around 8:00 am PST) to update everyone on how pre-op went.

God bless,
~Rachel