The battered

Here it is, the big day we have been waiting for.  Not necessarily excitedly though.  Soon in a few days Blake will be "whole".  We decided to take a few pictures on our journey so maybe we could have evidence of the fun things Blake gets to do.            We arrived at the hospital at 6:55 by 7:05 Blake was fully "dressed" in his beautiful (blue) hospital garb.  On a side note, he was sure to wear his blue shirt to the hospital.  I think he had a feeling he would be seeing a lot of red.  At 8:30 the Doctors were ready to wheel him out and start his adventure.

(The back door)

Doctors intials before surgery.  So they don't fix the wrong heart...

  6.5 hours later we Finally got to go in the SICU and see Blake.

Blake after surgery.  He already had the breathing tube removed.  After they brought him into his room in the SICU we were told he sat straight up and tried pulling out the tube.  The anesthesiologist said you can't keep a strong man down!  He was hooked to several different i.v.'s- one in each arm and he has a big "thing" on his neck that goes into his central line.  It has several different i.v.'s hooked there as well.  He also has a nice chest tube and a granade for all the drainage.  Lookin pretty!

The tower of power.

Finally a little relaxed.  Blake had a real hard time coming off the anesthetics.  He had a case of the shakes. Bad.  It seemed the whole bed was shaking.  They gave him medicine to help that which imediately made him nauseas.  He had a rough few hours.  Lucky for him, he doesn't remember it.  The nurse in the SICU was awesome.  She was shouting orders and taking great care of Blake.  I have to admit, I had a real hard time seeing Blake this way and felt totally helpless.  And yes, I did feel like I was going to pass out.  I really thought I had prepared myself for everything!  The Doctors asked Blake if he felt like he had been hit by a train and hit again after they backed up to see what they hit the first time.  Then laughed after Blake thanked them for making him feel miserable.

All the i.v's.  The surgeon has a good sense of humor, which works great with Blake.  First thing Dr. Selzman said this morning was that all the nurses were talking about Blake.  They were really excited to see a 30 year old butt instead of an 85 year old one.  Then he came out to the waiting room and told us that the surgery had gone well.  He said, I don't know if you like to hear this but, it was a fun surgery.  You can base a fun surgery on how many 4 letter words are said.  They didn't say any so it was fun.