Another Surgery for our baby.

Three open heart surgeries within six days of each other.

Why?

Because Ashley's little body couldn't handle such a huge adjustment and change.

It's a little hard to explain especially if you don't know or understand medical terminology, but I'll do my best to get you through it. Having a daughter have such horrible medical issues forced me to read and study Mom's nursing books. Ashley's cardiologist also had a heart model that came apart. He let me take it home to study for a few weeks.

As I mentioned when Ash was a baby, she had open heart surgery at just two weeks old. Her heart was four fifths the size of her chest, and she was blue and pale. She made it 24 hours then needed to be vented (put on a respirator), then once determined what she needed, a date for surgery was set.

Fast forward to her at 3 years old. What they did when she was a baby needed to be completely changed. Her heart for the first 3 years of life was basically, "patched together." It was pumping and working a lot harder than it should have been and when she was two and a half, her lips and fingertips started to turn blue. That was the indication to Dr. Singh, it was time for the Fontan.

That Tuesday morning, in 1993, would be the beginning of heartbreak, anxiety, worry, waiting, and waiting, and waiting.

They took Ashley's blood out of her body and ran it through a machine as they operated on her. They typically didn't do things that way with this particular surgery but then again, nothing was ever typical or easy with Ash.

Eleven long hours of surgery and finally the doc came into the waiting room. She was alive and stable, but the next 24 to 48 hours would be the most critical.

All we could do was hurry up and wait and over those hours would prove to be the longest of our lives.