surgery updates/time line...

We will be updating this throughout the day...

7:30am - Darla Jane was taken to the OR and we went to the parents waiting room.
8:50am - We were told that the incision had been made and the surgery started.
10:10am - We just got our first update call. Darla Jane is just about to go onto the heart lung machine and they are starting onto the aorta repair. The next check in should be around 11:30. It is going as planned.
11:25am The majority of the surgery has been done ( the aorta repairs) and her heart has started beating again on its own, that's a good thing. They should be getting closer to finishing in another hour.
12:30pm She made it!!! she's off the heart lung machine and her heart is back to doing all the work. The body is so amazing that it can handle something so invasive and act like it was nothing! All the xrays and "echos" and things look really good. They will leave her chest open for the next few days to allow for swelling and things and so they are just working on hooking up all the tubes and stopping any bleeding and things. she should be out in about an hour or so.
1:30 pm.  There was a little bit of bleeding, which is normal because of all the sutures they had to put in.  They Dr. has the bleeding stopped now though and is getting ready to put the chest tubes in that will help reduce the pressure around her heart for the next little while.  It's looking like we will be done in about 45 minutes.
2:15 We just spoke to the surgeon and everything went good. She should be back in her room around 3ish. He said her blood saturation look better now than they did before the surgery. That means once she has healed and can go home she will be able to run on her own steam! Then the next 2 surgeries will change some more of the plumbing to get her heart to circulate her blood even better. Right now her heart is still mixing the blood but not as much as before and each surgery will make it so it mixes it less and less until the 3^rd surgery will make it so that it doesn’t mix at all. The next couple of days will be the most critical to make sure everything continues to improve. Pics to come...