Hours Later

Tyler was doing great. Danny and I went to visit with my mom and sister after work. They said his heart meds were down which means his heart was doing most of the work. Everyone was so impressed with how strong his heart was and how well he was doing. I stayed with him and everyone went to eat and he flat lined around 7pm. It was really scary to see the baby have no pulse and no blood pressure. Chaos broke out in the ICU yelling for surgeons and meds that I didn't even know what were for. It was so scary and I felt so helpless to see my child go into cardiac arrest and be able to do nothing for him. I got Danny and we just stood there realizing it probably wasn't good for us to go through this, so we left to wait in the waiting room. For the first time, I thought what would I do if he flat lined when I was home....I don't know if I can do this. Danny and I didn't know if Tyler was going to make it and this might be it. We wanted more than anything for him to just be comfortable and whatever was meant to be would come to pass. We knew he was in the Lord's hand and would fulfill his mortal mission, whatever that might be. A case manager came and talked to us that they were working on putting him on a heart/lung machine. We knew that wasn't good since they told us before the surgery they have about a 90% chance of survival if the baby is able to pump on his own and about 50% chance if they are put on life support. Doctors came out a couple hours later. They said they have no idea why this happened. It could be the result of so many things including infection, medication, hormone level. The heart is so sick and fragile after surgery and at 1 week old that anything can trigger it and they would examine everything through the night to try to find the cause so it doesn't happen again. When a child loses life they are concerned about the organ functions (brain, liver, kidneys) which they will be watching. They said the good thing is that his chest was open so CPR was started right away by being able to directly press or hold the heart and he responded very fast to that. They don't know what damage it might have done to other organs, but hopeful it was minimal. The heart lung machine is never good for the body system. It allows his heart to have a rest which it needs right now, but is also harder to wean these children. However, they think that Tyler's heart is strong enough that hopefully in 1-2 days they will be able to wean him from it. The recovery of these children is often more difficult than the surgery. Their little bodies go through so much and he just has such a sick heart right now. Last night was a tough night, but we know that things will work out how they are meant to work out. He was too small of a guy to close his chest cavity up which turned out to be such a blessing so they could preform CPR directly on the heart last night. Although it was so hard to see him go through this and we were pretty rattled, we are at peace this morning. We are grateful for an eternal perspective, each other and our family and friends' constant support. We take things minute by minute, day by day. Today is a new day which we are grateful for. Thank you, everyone, for your love and support. As my coach from BYU said, we are remembering that the details are in the Lord's hands. How grateful we are for the peace to know that he will be ok no matter what. We love you all. We will keep you updated.