I know, I know; it's been a while. Ryan had surgery last Monday, and I can't believe how well he is doing for just having had open-heart surgery. It's amazing how quickly kids bounce back after undergoing something so invasive.
We took Ryan to the hospital at 7:30 a.m. By around 8:30 the anesthesiologist took him away from us to start surgery. The nurse assisting the surgeon came out a couple times to update us with his progress, and by 2:00 p.m. we saw him in the hall as they were wheeling him to the PICU. About an hour later they had him hooked up to all the needed monitors and we were then able to be with him.

In the PICU right after surgery.

I stayed the first night with Ryan. During the night, I woke up to him whimpering so I quickly got up and saw that he had flipped to his stomach and was ready to crawl off the bed. It about gave me a heart attack! After flipping over three more times and getting on all fours, his nurse finally gave him something to sedate him. Poor kid.

Eric's parent's were able to come help us during this tough time.

Ryan started doing a lot better once they were able to take out the chest tubes, central line, catheter, etc. It made a tremendous difference.


Ready to go to the play room to get some wiggles out.

A clown came to cheer us up. Ryan enjoyed all her tricks despite the look on his face.

We were able to take him home on Thursday. Look how good he looks!