Post Surgery Update

Peyton resting after surgery



As most of you all know, Peyton's surgery was a success. We spoke to the doctor afterwards and he informed us that they were able to successfully place the pacemaker near her left armpit and that it only took one incision to place the lead on the heart and the pacemaker. The original thought was that it would take two.

Peyton was sore right afterwards and will be for several days. The doctor blew us away when he said we could probably go home as early as tomorrow (if she eats, drinks and uses the bathroom well). He also added, that he saw no reason that Peyton couldn't be back on her bike or a soccer field in 2 weeks. We will probably stretch that out, but what great news this is!

We have received our pacemaker instructions and I suppose are considered experts. Whatever, we still have tons of questions, but the pacemaker nurses have opened the door for us to ask anything anytime.

I have to share this one story about Peyton in the PCICU last night. This will show you that the Peyton we all know is still alive and well. Her first two questions after the surgery was over was "is the surgery over and can I go home now? We explained to her that she has to eat, drink, and rest well before they would let us go. And that we would have to go to a regular hospital room before we could go home. She was receiving a little extra oxygen at this time and couldn't stand the feeling of the tubes in her nose. She kept pulling them out and we were trying to explain to her that in order to get out of PCICU she needed to keep that in until her breathing was better. They tried to take it out earlier, but it was obviously too early. Her saturation levels needed to be consistently above 94 or higher to keep the oxygen tube off. When they had it off, Karen was explaining this to her (and at that time her levels were in the mid 80's). Peyton begins breathing really hard and fast trying to raise her saturation levels to 94. It was hilarious. We had the tube put back on (just blowing small amounts of oxygen to assist her) and her sat levels went up to 100. She looks at the monitor and says, "the number is 100 and that is better than 94." "Can we please take this thing off now?" The nurse overheard this and couldn't believe that a 5 year old was monitoring her own saturation levels. We could only laugh about it.

Well, I have said it a ton, but it can't be said enough. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for your prayers, support and thoughts. This has been a very long ordeal and we are ready to get her home and reunite with the rest of our family. With that said, please pray for our other kids. Taylor, Anna-Kate and Noah. This has been tremendously hard on them as well and we want very badly for our family to be back together again SOON! Thank you so much to those of you who have been keeping our kids. You have been such a blessing to us and to them. We appreciate everyone and everything. Please pray that Peyton will do well and we will be out of here by tomorrow sometime. Also join us in prayer that her incision wound heals properly with no infection. Also because the pacemaker is a foreign body, there is a chance of infection resulting from bacteria that it could have. Please pray this doesn't happen. This would open the door to more complications. We are very thankful for the success now and we will be taking the other things one day at a time.