WE'RE HOME!

I feel as if I'm in some fantastical dream and keep expecting to wake up and find out that, no, we're still in the hospital.

But we're not. Job's home. Happy. Eating so! much. Taking a bath. Playing with his brothers.

This feels like the very first time in his life that Job has "cooperated" and met expectations (or actually even exceeded them). I keep asking Seth if I'm forgetting about some other event in his life where he responded typically (or not catastrophically?), but we can't think of anything.



We found out that this was actually only the second auxiliary fistula done at Seattle Children's. We knew it was rare, but maybe not that rare! It's just that if kids develop pulmonary AVMs ("bad veins"), they usually do so two or three years after their Glenn (OHS #3) and are thus old enough to get the Fontan (OHS #3).

It was both amusing and frustrating to be in the ICU and field so many questions about why Job needed this surgery! The fellows and even some of the ICU attendings weren't familiar with this procedure and were very cautious both because of their unfamiliarity and because of Job's history, wanting to keep us in the hospital for another day or two.

But Job's surgeon and his team of cardiologists most familiar with him were thrilled with his post-op recovery and convinced everyone to let us go home. We feel very comfortable, now, assessing Job and are, unfortunately, quite familiar with his distress signs. Plus we have so many numbers to call if we are concerned, with such immediate responses, that it sometimes feels as if we essentially have a cardiologist living with us.