Open Heart

Probably won’t hear from me much for the next week or so.

This afternoon, we’re shipping out to Boston.  Tomorrow morning, my 2 year old son has a pre-op appointment at Children’s Hospital Boston, then Thursday he’s going under the knife to fix an Atrial Septal Defect.  An ASD is a whole between the two atria in the heart.  It allows oxygenated blood to flow back into the right side of the heart, forcing that side to pump that blood back to the lungs again, thus making it work harder.  Over time, this can cause the right side to expand and lead to pulmonary hypertension.  After a couple decades this can lead to heart failure and early death.  On the bright side, it’s totally treatable.  With some ASDs, they can just insert a catheter into a vein in your leg, snake it up to your heart, and remotely place a patch.  But alas, my little man’s variety (Sinus Venosus, it’s called) won’t allow that.  So they’re going to have to go into his chest.  Fortunately, the surgeon doing it specializes in minimally invasive procedures, so that’s good.  And the success rate for these operations is well above 97%, from what I’ve found online.  So I’m confident it’ll turn out fine.  Just won’t be very fun for the next couple days.  And for several weeks afterwords.  He’ll be one miserable little dude for a while, though I’m sure they’ll give us some good drugs for him.

So that’s my week.

On a less important note, I didn’t get much writing done at all over the weekend.  Family fun and life in general got in the way Friday night and Saturday during the day.  Then Saturday night I made the mistake of opening Blake Crouch’s Run.  That kept me up until 3 am, essentially ruining me for writing on Sunday evening, since I was bloody tired.  But it was totally worth it: GREAT book!  So I’m sitting at just under 66,000 words on Masters.  Probably need another 2,000 to complete the first draft.  Oh well, I missed my goal of finishing by the end of April.  Sue me.  It’ll be done soon enough.  Only one parent is allowed to stay overnight at the Hospital at a time.  So those nights when my wife kicks me out of the room, I guess I’ll do some writing.  Maybe.  If I’m not too anxious.  But then, I don’t tend to be a big worrier, so I think (hope?) all will be well, and the surgery will go flawlessly, and recovery will be easier than we think.

We’ll see how it goes.  Keep your fingers crossed.