September 25th - Operation day

I had a pretty good night sleep considering. Made my usual couple of calls to hear how James was during the night. Nigel rushed off to fetch his parents from the airport 9.30. Whilst Nigel met up with Mum and Dad (June and David) I had to go and see James. His big day was here - the day I had been dreading all along. Thanks to surgeon Sune I was surprisingly relaxed. I/we had great confidence in him. I realised if Sune couldn´t save our baby boy then nobody could have done better for him. Additionally we had great confidence in James too, he is a strong fighter. I spent the time alone with James well. I did my favourite things. Leaning over him I put my cheek to his cheek so he could feel I was there with him. I whispered many times in his ear, telling him to keep on fighting. Told him how much we loved him and how extremely proud we were of him. I knew it might be my last chance to be close to him again, being so warm and alive. A couple of tears rolled down from my cheeks. After a while Nigel turned up with Mum and Dad. It was so nice to see them again, just a shame it was under such circumstances. Mum and Dad finally got to see their grandson for the first time and before the operation. They took some photos of James, admired him of course :o) and afterwards we all went for lunch. James´s staff called me on the mobile just after 12 and said when they would pick him up and we had the time to see him again before. Nigel and I rushed over. We agreed we shouldn´t be there when they came to pick him up, I would not be able to keep a cool head anymore. What James didn´t need was a hysterical mummy. We kissed him and told him how much we loved him and how proud we were of him. Out from the room I couldn´t keep my tears back anymore. It was a day of silence for me. I felt I was horrible to Mum and Dad but all I could do was concentrate on James. We headed back home to wait for the call in the evening. The op-staff picked up James at 13.40. Time went very slow indeed. It was so nice to meet the kids when they came home in the afternoon. A total exhaustion came over me. I worked on the blog as I had decided to do but couldn´t even carry out half of what I had planned. Instead I looked around on different websites and looked on happy stories from cases like James. Naturally I didn´t stop there, without telling Nigel I peeked on the unhappy stories as well including pictures of dead babies. My way of trying to prepare myself for something I never ever could prepare myself for. I fell asleep in Neville´s bed with James´s body top close to me. It had been my comforter for a while. It was the body top he had worn when we came in to the emergency and later used over his head in intensive care to keep him warm protecting his eyes from the bright examination lamps. I refused to wash it! The scent on it was from my baby. I woke up from my mobile going off at 19.30, it was Sune!!! Nigel was right by me when I talked to the surgeon. Sune said everything went well and I asked him straight away if there were any surprises. Of course I meant bad ones we didn´t like and he said no everything was as he expected.
We took it easy at home and didn´t rush off too quickly to James. We knew the staff had quite a lot to hook up to him, and to settle him after safely coming out from theatre.
When we arrived back to him it hit me how lucky we were! He was still with us, not over yet but our son is not a quitter. He takes after two, bull headed, determined strong parents! They hadn´t closed his sternum because of the increasing swelling of his operated heart. He would have an open chest for a couple of days for precaution. Over his chest he only had a sterile pad, so we clearly saw his heart pump beneath it. Neither Nigel nor I are skittish which helped of course. The sight of his heart pumping up and down from inside his chest was the most beautiful sight I have ever seen :o). Nigel took some pictures of James and his incision so that when James is older he can see what it looked like. His siblings will have a lot of questions and so will James.
When we came back to the hotel room I realised I had a slight temperature.