Open Heart Surgery

There are no words that I could ever find to explain the day of McKenzie's heart surgery. The night before we got a hotel room near the hospital to save drive time in the morning. I watched her sleep for hours and when the time came to leave, I held back every emotion I felt and we drove to the hospital. We arrived at the scheduled time of 6 am, and shortly after the nurses began their assessments of her. Nikki and I tried to talk casually, like we weren't getting ready for the longest day of our lives.

At 7:30 the anesthesiologist briefly reminded us of his plans and the risks involved. At 7:45, the surgeon came for McKenzie. The hardest thing I have ever had to do was hand our baby to someone we've met twice who would stop her heart. McKenzie would be clinically dead and all we could do was pray and wait. 

We eventually made it to the cardiology waiting room, a room we've seen so many times but only once did we see it this way. As hard as I tried, I couldn't get myself together. I obsessed over every detail, I questioned if McKenzie was mad at me, Did she know I love her?, What if she doesn't make it to the bypass? What if she doesn't make it back? What if something goes wrong? Will she recover ok? Will she be in pain? Is she in pain? Is she scared? Is this really happening right now?

Arnold Palmer uses an app to update parents of their loved one's surgery progress. At 8:02am McKenzie was asleep safely and they began working on the lines needed for surgery. I found comfort in knowing she was dreaming. At 8:57am the procedure began and I felt sick to see the image of them cutting her chest. At 9:19am they began to dissect down to get access to her vessels for bypass. At 9:19am, I prayed and cried in the chapel. At 10:14am, McKenzie was successfully on bypass. 

After multiple more updates, ( graphic photos and videos) at 12:49pm McKenzie was officially off bypass and they began an echo. At 1:39pm, McKenzie was successfully out of surgery and at 2:12pm she was in the PICU. We waited another two hours before being called back to see her. As we scrubbed our hands and walked to her room, my entire world stopped.

It didn't look like McKenzie, I instantly felt sick. The wires, the machines, the tubes, the blood. Her eyes had liquid on them to prevent dryness, it looked as if she had tears falling down. She heard our voice and even though she was sedated, she started to move. She wanted us and we wanted her, but at that point - we were bad for her and had to leave so she would rest. 

I handed my baby to someone who took her away and cut her open. We waited as her heart was being repaired, we waited in fear and hope. We saw our baby hooked up to multiple machines and as she began to show the desire to acknowledge us, we were forced to walk away. 

Seven in a half hours, that was the time from us handing McKenzie to the surgeon to us seeing McKenzie in recovery. This day, by far has been the longest and hardest day of our lives.