Zipper Club Anniversary

Today, Lucy celebrates her 1 year open heart surgery anniversary. What an amazing and challenging year it has been for all of us. We have been through so much and had many ups and downs, but I think we have learned a lot and are much stronger from the experience. At the time, we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. A 46 day ICU visit.

Lucy went into surgery that morning at 6AM, and after a grueling 10+ hour surgery, we were told that the repairs looked good and they were going to try to start her heart again. The doctors initially had an extremely difficult time getting Lucy off of the heart-lung bypass machine. Third time was finally a charm, but by that time Sarah and I both needed our own machines to keep our hearts beating. A huge weight was finally lifted off of our chests nearly 10 hours later.

At around 6PM, we were reunited with Lucy for the first time and little did we know that our prison-like Pediatric Intensive Care Unit room would become home for many weeks to come.

After reading back what we wrote during that time and seeing now just really how sick she was, it's a miracle that she survived surgery. It's something now that we, the doctors and even her heart surgeon can joke about. We all love you Lucy! Happy Anniversary!

(Lucy’s heart surgery documented on Flickr)