After what felt like a very long weekend with nothing new to say, Monday is here and the new week brings some fresh positivity :) James is still asleep, but he looks much better today. His swelling has gone down significantly and he finally is looking like himself again. Except, of course, for all the tubes and wires still in the way – he's not posing for any photo shoots yet! But it's good to see his face look normal again, and recognizably like James.
A little overview of what has been going on, and why it's such a complicated recovery process: the Glenn Procedure (surgery) on Thursday changed up some of the connections in and out of his heart, so that blood will from now on be circulated partly via a new circulatory route that bypasses his heart. Now that his heart doesn't have to pump all of his blood in and out, but will only have to handle a reduced load, it won't be so overworked. The new Glenn circulatory path moves blood, without requiring the heart to pump it along, by allowing natural pressures in his body to push it instead.
His heart looks great and the Glenn circulation system is successful. However, he's swollen with extra water retention, a normal surgical side effect, and he is also on a breathing tube. Both of these create extra pressure inside his body. The extra pressure then makes the Glenn circulation not work as well, so he needs extra aids – such as the breathing tube. He's sedated and kept deliberately asleep until the whole system is balanced well enough that waking up and wiggling around won't overtax him.
Each day, his body balances and adapts a little bit more.
Goals: His docs are planning to let him slowly wake up tomorrow, and have the breathing tube removed Wednesday. We're crossing our fingers!
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