Surgery Day - evening update

Well, still have not seen Ben, but he is now in i.c.u and all reports are that he is doing fine.

The surgical summary is this: they repaired stenosis (narrowing) of the aorta, common in Williams Syndrome, and fixed the left coronary artery as expected.

There were two surprises. One was that they had to utilize a procedure called the brom aoroplasty to repair the aorta. It turns out that our surgeon, Dr. Backer, literally wrote the article on this procedure. For those of you who are interested, you can read the article here.

The second surprise was that, like when he was an infant, rather than a narrowing there was actually a full obstruction of the left coronary artery. Again, it is a miracle that he did not have a major heart attack or other episode. The body apparently adapted by sending collateral arteries over to the left ventricle from the right to keep it pumping.

The heart is functioning with little assistance from medication, which is a good thing, and the increased blood flow to the heart muscle may well actually help a leaky mitral valve perform better. Overall Ben's heart health is excellent.

So we essentially have a double miracle son, especially considering all the physical activity that Ben has enjoyed this summer: shoveling snow, drumming, playing basketball, etc.

He'll remain pretty much asleep until sometime tomorrow morning when they'll begin to wake him up and take the initial steps of recovery.

Noah and Lydia hung in there all day. We've officially passed the 12 hour mark of waiting. We'll all take a peek in on Ben as soon as we're allowed to, and then Gma and Gpa S will take them home so that they can get to school on Wednesday and Thursday. Kim and I will get a night's rest at Ronald McDonald House, and then go back to alternate night stay-overs until Ben's released from the hospital, probably in about a week.

Again, thanks for all your concern, prayers, love and support. We'll continue to post updates as pertinent thresholds are crossed.