Joey had a second surgery to remove his subaortic membrane on 05/18/06, again at All Children's Hospital in St Petersburg. This time, his surgeon was Dr. James Quintessenza ("Dr. Q"). We (Joey, Mom, Dad and Grandma) arrived at 7 AM on the day of the surgery to find our pastor and the music minister from our church in the waiting room to pray with us. After a few minutes in that room, we were moved to the "short stay" surgical waiting room, where Joey's grandpa and grandma Julie joined us. Unfortunately, the surgical rooms were very backed up that day so we waited there for several hours. Eventually, they called Joey back to get an IV done. The IV placement made him very woozy, and he ended up needing smelling salts as he started to breathe very heavy, sweat and get pale and clammy from the IV. They moved us to a room then, to start IV antibiotics and IV fluids. The antibiotic was Vancomyacin, and it turns out that Joey had a common reaction to that, called "Red man syndrome"- his ears turned bright red and his head itched terribly. After a nice dose of Benedryl, the surgical staff came to take him to the surgical holding area. They usually only allow parents back there, but they allowed all 5 adults in Joey's "posse" to go back to the surgical waiting area for the few minutes before he left for the surgical suite. The surgical nurse took him at 1:30, and told us that the surgery would start at 3:00. We all settled in to the family waiting room to wait for word from the nurse, who promised to call every hour and half or so. The surgery was over at about 5:00, and we got to see Joey in the cardiovascular ICU (CVICU) at about 6:15 PM. He looked much better than he had right after his first surgery, his color was good and he was even talking a little bit in between long periods of sleeping. He had oxygen through a nasal cannula, a Foley catheter, one chest tube and 4 IV's. This is a picture of him in the CVICU shortly after we first got to see him. The surgeon came to talk to us shortly after we saw Joey in the CVICU. He said that He was able to (in his words) "nip and tuck" the aortic valve to reduce the leakage in it to a very minor leak. He was also able to remove the subaortic membrane, which he said was circular, on both sides of the aorta. He also said the heart muscle under the aorta was hypertrophic, meaning that it had gotten overdeveloped due to the force of trying to push blood past that subaortic membrane. He described it as similar to how a muscle gets bigger from lifting weights. Hopefully with the membrane removed it wont get worse, but it's one of the things that they'll have to keep an eye on at his follow up appointments. We also found out at a cardiologist appointment a few days later that during the surgery the coronary artery was nicked, so there is a slight bit of bleeding into the heart, but this is another thing that is monitored at each appointment. On Friday, May 19th, He got one of the 4 IV's and a Foley catheter removed, so he could move around a little easier. His nurse Friday and Saturday was the same nurse that he liked so much during his last surgery, nearly 5 years ago! Her name is Shelly, and Joey was thrilled to see her again.This is a picture of Joey with Shelly on Saturday May 20th Around 11 AM he got to get out of bed and sit in a chair and finally eat some real food, the first since Wednesday night. He had a few sips of Oreo milkshake and a bite of a chicken strip, then it was definately time for a nap. On Saturday, Joey got his chest tube and the IV in his neck removed.He walked around quite a bit in the ICU, they have a long hallway and he walked all over the CVICU.
He was awake and either sitting up in a chair, enjoying talking with visitors or walking from about 9:30 AM until 4:30 PM, he was making a great recovery!However, he had a very hard time Saturday night. For some reason, starting on Saturday he became very scared of getting any pain medicine through the IV so he was lying to the nurses about his pain level. Since they (and John and I- we were all fooled!) thought he was doing so well, they stopped all the IV pain medicine and just had him take regular Tylenol. Around 9PM he was jumpy, rubbing his feet together and looking horrible, but he kept insisting that nothing hurt. He got really, really upset but wouldn't admit to the nurses that anything hurt. The nurse figured out what he was doing, and she finally gave him morphine and an anti-anxiety med in his IV and that made him go to sleep within minutes. Then she and the doctor worked out a pain management plan that didn't involve the IV, and started on that when he woke up. He felt much better on Sunday morning, so we were told that he could be discharged! Right before we left, the discharge nurse took out his IV, and he bled so much that she had to call in a second nurse to help stop the bleeding. She said that she had never seen anyone bleed that much from having an IV removed in 20 years as a nurse! Now he's home and walking all over the house, watching TV and eating like a champ. He's even taking the pain meds when needed so that will make things much easier for him. He went back for a checkup with his cardiologist Jorge Giroud on Tuesday 05/23, and everything seems to be fine. We go back to the cardiologist on June 5th. Everyone at All Children's Hospital was wonderful, from the surgeon to the doctors and nurses (the nurses rock!), to the staff at the Ronald McDonald House. Thanks for everyone for your prayers and good wishes, we are really happy this surgery is all over with! Here is a picture of Joey enjoying being at home on his first day out of the hospital, Sunday the 21st of May.
