goodbye and hubby took her as far as he could.
The surgery would take six hours, so we decided to head to the mall to get clothes for her after surgery. This was the second time out of the hospital for the two of us together in nearly two months (it is really hard to find clothes that are wire friendly BTW). In the middle of a shop, nearly bang on the six hour mark, hubby got a call. I hurried over to listen "good news we are out of surgery and she is doing well, we manage to get a bigger conduit than I hoped and also a homo-graft one".
We hurried back to the hospital to see her in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU). I got to the doors and I stopped "I'm not ready to see her". I knew her chest was still open and I wanted to focus on what I could control, what I could do for her, not what I couldn't do. I wanted her to hear a strong confident and happy mum, so she would feel safe and secure - that was not me in that moment.
Hubby went and saw her; he read to her, touched her gently on her skin (where he could find a space on her body that was not covered in wires, drips or lines), while I stayed away and tried to keep myself busy, relaxed and calm to try and keep my milk in.
We got a call from the surgeon that night to say that she has a leak and I am going to do surgery in PICU, it will take about 45 mins and I will call you when I am finished. 45 mins to the second we got the call "I managed to repair the leak and all going well I will close her chest tomorrow".
The Crucial 24 - 48 Hours Post Surgery
The morning after surgery I decided I was ready to see my little girl. Hubby went in and asked the nurses to cover her open chest. I walked in and wanted to cry, where is my little girl? A swollen blown up doll lay there (still sedated). Wires and lines coming out of her body (even her forehead), most all feeding from a bank of medications behind her which was about the size of a king single headboard. I just wanted to pick her up and cuddle her. I frantically looked for a space on her bare skin to kiss and make it all better.
That afternoon the surgeon closed her chest. Not long after, Eva started to have violent seizures. They started trying all sorts of medications to stop the seizures. That evening Hubby went up to say goodnight to her around 9 pm and check how she was - he walked in as medical staff were rushing to her room. Through the window in the PICU room door, he saw the stats machine flat lined and seven medical staff working on her and one of the staff grabbed the adrenaline tube from the medicine bank (4 minutes of CPR). Hubby said it felt like so much longer than this. We learnt afterwards from Hubby's mum in Ireland, that hurricane "Eva" was fighting her way through Ireland at the same time. Prayers from New Zealand and Ireland were flooding in.
The cardiac arrest was caused by a drug called Phenobarbital, which is used for treatment of certain types of epilepsy and known to cause cardiac arrest in some people.
Finally .... "we are on number six medication (Ketamine) and it seems to be working, she has had four hours without a seizure".
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