Post Surgery - Day 4

Brennan is keeping up the progress. We are out of the CICU(which by the way is it's own little isolated section of the PICU just for cardiac kids, it's awesome!). We now have our own little room on the surgical unit. There's a possibility we could go home tomorrow since Brennan is already eating, pooping, and peeing really good. He just has to have a better chest x-ray. Last one was too 'fluffy' the doctors said. Just a little too much fluid in there. Another good thing is that his saturation levels are mid 90's on room air so NO MORE OXYGEN!Even when he gets really mad it doesn't drop below 90, before the shunt it would get down to 50 or so. It's amazing what a little pulmonary blood flow will do. Thanks for the continued prayers on our little man.

Post Surgery - Day 3

Brennan continues to do really good. He's been on room air since yesterday afternoon with saturation levels in the 90's. The only tubes in him are 2 IV's, no chest tube, PIC line, or ART line. The shunt is working really good! Hopefully later tonight they'll move him out of the ICU.

Post Surgery - Day 2

Brennan is doing awesome. They extubated him at about 8:30 this morning and he is so much happier. All night he was wiggling around trying to get this thing out of his mouth and now he's relaxed and looks very comfortable. He's only on 1/4 liter of oxygen and his oxygen saturation levels are at 100! His color just looks so much better than it has for the past 4 weeks. Thank you everyone for your prayers!

Recovery Begins

Brennan is recovering well in the PICU. He's comfortable lying here with all sorts of tubes in him. They're planning on extubating him tomorrow morning. I wish I could have posted a better picture but we left the camera cable at home so it's just from Janalee's cell phone.

We are thankful for the excellent job the staff here at Primary's has done. Brennan still has a long road ahead of him, including a bigger surgery, but things have gone as good as possible so far. We are thankful for Brennan. He's amazing. He's been through more in 6 weeks than I've been through my entire life. He's strengthened our family and increased my testimony of our Savior Jesus Christ. He's allowed me to change my perspective on a lot of things. He's made me realize how we take good health for granted. He's made me a better person.

Brennan Out of Surgery

Brennan is out of surgery. We will go into the PICU to see him in a few minutes. His surgeon, Dr. Burch, said everything went well and Brennan did great. His saturation levels are already higher so he's getting good flow through the shunt.

Brennan Surgery Update

Brennan was scheduled to go in at 12:30 so he's been in surgery for almost an hour now. The surgery is supposed to take 2-3 hours so we should be getting an update soon. Brennan was a happy little boy this morning. I was getting him to smile a ton, he was being way cute. He was surprisingly calm this morning even after not eating for 4 hours. The anesthesiologist came and took him from us. It's really hard handing your baby off to a stranger but I know he's in good hands here at Primary's. We'll keep doing updates on this blog to let everyone know how it's going.

Brennan Going In For Surgery

It's official. Brennan will be going in for surgery Monday morning. We were hoping they would be able to do the total repair but the surgeons and cardiologists have decided that a BT Shunt would be the best thing for him right now. Janalee and I are already very nervous and scared for Brennan. The surgery has been around for a long time and I have the utmost confidence in the cardiologists and surgeons that will be working on Brennan. The good news is that they are going through his side and between his ribs so they don't have to cut through his sternum. They also don't have to put him on a heart lung machine which is great. The bad news is that this is still major surgery and there's always a risk. Please remember Brennan in your prayers. The total repair surgery will now be delayed for another 6 months or so. During this time the added blood flow to the pulmonaries will help them grow.

We are hoping to get him home before Thanksgiving without the need of Oxygen. We are very grateful to have Brennan here with us. He is such a special little baby and we love him so much. We are also grateful that Brennan's heart defect can be fixed. There are so many children born with heart defects that can't be operated on due to their complexity or other complications in the body. My heart goes out to families like the Bowmans. Their son Stephen was born with a defect very similar to Brennan's and the outcomes are totally different. I can't imagine the heartache this family is going through. I'm amazed at their strength and courage.

A moment to brag!

Aren't they so cute! Zoe loves Brennan.

Playing in the leaves!

Zoe and Randall had fun raking and playing in the leaves at my moms house. They put them in a huge pile and then jumped in it and they both disappeared when they jumped. We were all laughing really hard.

Halloween Fun!

For Halloween this year Zoe was Tinkerbell and Brennan was a giraffe. We went to my parents house and Randall and Zoe went trick or treating around the neighborhood. Randall had to tell her what to say at the first house but after that she ran to all the other houses. She was so excited that people were giving her candy. She loved to answer the door at my moms and see what everyone was dressed up as. We also visited Randall parents and grandma and grandpa Edwards house. We had fun. Brennan spent he whole night in the house or in his car seat. Next year will be fun with two kids running around. Zoe and I went to our ward party and she had fun with her best friend Laney.

MRI Update

Brennan is out of the MRI and is recovering from the sedation. Because he is so little we have to stay here for observation for 12 hours or so. He did really well. They had to intubate him just to ensure his saturation levels stayed high. I guess the drugs for sedation cause the heart rate to lower and that will cause saturation levels to drop...and his are already low enough.

Moving forward the Cardiologists and Surgeons will all get together and look all the information over and will let us know what surgery they're doing and when. Dr. Su told us that he thinks they will be able to do the total repair which is what we are hoping for.

MRI Tomorrow

Tomorrow we are off to have an MRI done on Brennan. We've got knots in our stomach's just thinking about how this will go and what the results will be. The Cardiologists are very concerned about how small his pulmonary is and the Surgeons want to know exactly what their dealing with before they go in there. Brennan can't eat past 8 am and the MRI isn't until 1, we'll see how that goes...

Take a look at how cute this kid is though:











Good news is that he's a very good eater, in fact I'd say he's a pig. He's already eating over 4 oz and weighs over 9 lbs! You'd never guess he has a heart defect other than those oxygen tubes and his purple lips when crying.