Updates on the last two months

The last two months have been especially hectic for us, with a new home, open heart surgery, Christmas, plus a farewell to preschool and preparation for kindergarten.

We’ve been real busy little bees!

And as a result, I haven’t blogged at all.

I thought it would be good to do a kind of photo-diary of what we’ve been up to for our own records, so I’ve created some back-dated posts to fill in the huge gap.

Before and After

Surgery, Day 2

Surgery, Day 3

Going Home on Day 5

Nothing like waking in your own bed

That’s all the photo’s I’ve uploaded for now, I’ll update Christmas when I get the chance.

We’ve now made it through The Month of Keeping Quiet, and are still relatively sane, considering.

I hope you had a great Christmas and New Year, and I’m look forward to getting back into blogging once again, when the mad rush of starting school is over.

Going Home on Day 5

Yesterday morning, Mr Bump had a chest x-ray, blood test and echocardiogram as a part of the discharge process. All the test results were fantastic.

Grandma gave Wren the day off from school, and in the afternoon she hopped into bed with the boy and played with her DS while he dozed.

Most of the rest of Day 4 was taken up with entertaining Mr Bump and keeping him from disturbing the younger boy in the bed beside his.

Understandably, we were relieved to learn that our angel was to be discharged early.

It was definitely sooner than we expected, but thank goodness we will no longer have to worry about him destroying the ward!

On Friday evening, five year old Kevin from next door paid Mr Bump a surprise visited with his parents. They were both very excited.

And now, here is the final result of all this:

Surgery, Day 3

The morphine drip came out today, and Mr Bump got out of bed for the first time since his surgery.

He needed a good cuddle, and the only one who would do was Grandma.

Followed by some ice cream, of course…

Then it was time for a short walk, and he was not tired!

It’s amazing how convenient wheelchairs can be for watching TV.

Maybe we should get one at home, Mummy?

We had a visit from Despereaux the mouse, and wondered what the heck it was all about.

And then LUNCH arrived…

After almost 48 hours since his last meal, almost anything would have tasted good, but devon & tomato sauce sandwiches just hit the spot!

We took the wheelchair for a spin and explored the playground outside, when Wren arrived after school.

Then Wren & Grandma dropped me home and Daddy had a sleepover in the hospital with Mr Bump.

Before and After

The last photo of Mr Bump’s unblemished chest before his surgery and the first photo afterwards.

Surgery Date Set

Our ISP has decided to allow me to access my blog domain once again, after almost two weeks of inaction.
Not surprisingly, a new ISP is just a matter of time now.

So we now have a date for Mr Bump’s open heart surgery for ASD; the 2nd December at Westmead Children’s Hospital. He’ll be in for a week, and need to be kept fairly quiet for about a month afterwards.

No heavy New Years partying for you, this year, little man. 

In January, we’ll be hosting a “school holiday party”. It’ll allow Wren & Mr Bumps to catch up with their friends and the Boyo can show off his scar.

On the surgeon’s advice, we’ll be missing the last 3 weeks of preschool, mainly to avoid bumps and pokes to his chest.

The surgeon has plenty of experience with this particular operation, apparently. He’s made a number of trips to Rwanda with other surgeons & a team of nurses to perform surgery on children there.

In a tent.

In fact, he’ll be returning from doing another stint there, the week before Mr Bump’s op. So our little angel will be in very good hands.

The surgery will consist of a incision of about 2in length down the centre of Mr Bump’s chest, through the breastbone.

His heart will be stopped and his blood pumped by machine.

They’ll go into the right atrium (top right heart chamber) and either sew the hole shut, or patch it with tissue taken from around his heart.

It should take about an hour and a half for the surgeon to do his bit, which is a relatively short length of time for this particular operation. Some surgeries take over four hours.

I’m going to take my cross-stitch, a book and WonderHubby. I doubt I’ll manage to make any use of the first two items during the day, but WH will definitely come in handy for hugs.

Actually, I made it sound like I’m dragging him along, but of course I couldn’t keep him away if I tried. We’ll hold hands and spend the time watching the clock together.

I think I’m going to let Wren have the day off school, too. She’ll be totally unable to concentrate, anyway.

What do you think?

Would she be better off with her Grandma or trying to do her work at school?

Atrial Septal Defect, What Fun.

Where to begin?

Well, almost 2 years ago, our doctor heard a slight murmur when she listened to Mr Bump’s chest and sent him for an echocardiogram.

It turned out that he had two holes in his heart, which in all likelihood would close over by themselves.

Not a problem. We forgot all about it.

Fast-forward to yesterday, when Mr Bump had another echocardiogram to confirm that the holes had indeed closed.

Slight problem. Hmmm.

The larger of the two has actually grown in that time (to roughly keep pace with the size of his heart), from 8mm to 12mm in diameter.

The good news is that there are no serious health issues for Mr Bump at the moment, although it may explain why he still has had such frequent attacks of croup.

The bad news is that because of the size of the hole, his paediatric cardiologist believes that a patch will not be enough, and Mr Bump will need surgery.

This year, so that it doesn’t interfere with kindergarten next year.

We have an appointment with the surgeon on the 23rd of September, when we’ll find out exactly what that will involve.

The actual problem is called Atrial Septal Defect (ASD), which is actually more common in girls, but I guess we got lucky.

Another way we got lucky is that ASD can usually be treated with a minor procedure not involving surgery.

Not this little chicken. We’re getting the whole kit and caboodle.

Because from what I’ve read, “surgery” in this case means open-heart surgery, with a heart-lung bypass machine. Scary stuff.

The really fun part is that we’ll be going through this while doing all the stuff involved in finding, buying and moving into our new home. I can’t wait.

At least it won’t be the first time that Mr Bump’s had surgery. He had a medical circumcision in July last year, so he has a vague idea of what it will be like.

I have my fingers crossed that the surgeon will take one look at the test results and say “No surgery for you, m’ boy. We’ll be able to patch that little hole up in a jiffy.”

First, moving, now this. I just hope these things don’t come in threes.