The Zantops: heart surgery

Mark made it through his heart surgery! All went well and Dr. Guleserian, his surgeon, is very pleased.

The morning of his surgery, he was so happy and smiley!

Dr. Guleserian came to see him before the surgery.

It took about 6 hours from the time we said goodbye until we got to see him. As he was bring taken into recovery, David and I got to see him for a minute as Dr. Guleserian told us how it went. She was very happy about it all.

We waited another hour or so and then we got to be with him.

The first day he was asleep. By about 3am he was inconsolable. The pain meds weren't working so they gave him Benadryl. That caused a bad reaction and he had to get two rounds of sedatives to calm him down and get him to sleep. It was pretty scary and sad.

Tuesday afternoon he got his drainage tubes out and finally really seemed more alert. Up until then, he didn't seem to know what was going on and his eyes looked very drugged so it was great to see him look like this...

The surgery was on Monday and by Wednesday afternoon, he was moved out of ICU and up to the cardiac floor.

He had some breathing trouble. He was retracting pretty bad and very congested. He hated his oxygen! Once he got that out, he was so much happier.

Thursday morning he took a wagon ride to get an X-ray. I think he liked it because he was quiet the whole time but still no smiles.

Thursday afternoon, Mark threw up and started refusing his meds. The sight of them made him gag. He got very upset and it was scary. He had to get morphine through his IV and that made him go to sleep.

By Friday morning, he was finally smiling. He really loved seeing all the nurses and doctors. He was looking more like himself and rolling onto his side.

He got an echo and watched Elmo the whole time. Ha! So cute!