Big sigh of relief...surgery went well!

I haven't had a chance to update on Reid's progress yet, so much has been happening.... but HUGE sigh of relief for us as surgery went really well!!

The surgeon actually found more defects that needed to be repaired than anticipated so he took care of those issues as well as worked on the mitral valve which was leaking and the main concern. The last time Reid had this surgery in August of 2007 the Dr. actually had to create 2 valves out of 1 with the tissue that was there. One of the newly created valves was working great...but the other one was leaking so his lungs were filled with fluid. When they went in to repair the valve yesterday it had actually twisted so they fixed that and tightened up the stitching from before. However they found that the back flap of that valve did not have much material to work with. They added man made material to help construct that valve better. The initial echo cardiogram they performed while he was still in the operating room still showed some minor leakage, but in comparison to before a vast improvement! The Dr. was happy with what he saw though and felt it was extremely successful. The fabulous news about it all is that his body is not requiring much medication, he is doing most of the recovery on his own. They even took out his breathing tube last night which to me is HUGE because last go around he did not come off of it until the night of day 8. He had basically been in a coma state until that time. He is a little agitated and they are giving him morphine....I say bring it on and give some to mom too!!!!!!!

Here are some pictures of our little trooper.