Actual Day of Surgery

7:40am: It's actually happening. The anesthesiology team just took her back. We'll do our best to keep you all updated. Thank you for any prayers you can spare.

9:15am: Just talked to the PAs (we love them!). So far, so good. She went to sleep well, which was the part the anesthesiologist was most concerned about, and they've done the transesophageal echocardiogram (internal echo) to confirm her left ventricular outflow obstruction gradient. Actual surgery will begin shortly.

11:30am: Things are still moving along well and as planned. Dr. Heinle had to make his way through a lot of scar tissue from Abby's last open heart surgery (to be expected), and she is now on the heart-lung bypass machine. The next step is the actual resection of the overgrown muscle.

2:00pm: We just saw Dr. Heinle. Aberdeen's surgery went better than we could have hoped. They were able to remove a substantial amount of muscle and some other fibrous tissue that brought her previous gradient of 160ish down to less than 10. LESS THAN 10!!!! She came off of bypass better than anyone expected and is not currently having any heart rhythm issues. There are a lot of things to look out for in the next few days (as we know too well), but as far as the actual surgery goes, we could not be happier. It will still be at least an hour before we get to see her, but we are so incredibly relieved to hear that everything went so smoothly and successfully. Thank you for all of your prayers and positive thoughts; thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

Hoping now for a smooth and uneventful recovery!!!!