"Dont believe in miracles... depend on them"

About 10 1/2 hours in surgery I was beginning to worry.  Thats so long on the heart lung maching im thinking to myself.  Deon and I watched so many ppl come and go all day in the surgical waiting room.  New aortic valves and double lung transplants, open heart bypass surgeries, just endless array of different surgeries as the hours ticked away all the while our Dani was in surgery fighting for her life.  We only had 2 reports the whole day of how her surgery was going. And every time they called us, our heart would sink with worry about what they might be there to tell us. 
   Then at the 11th hour I walked up to the nurses desk to ask if there was any word on my daughter and she said yes.  We just got a message that they are finishing up with your daughters surgery and she will be transported to the 5th floor founders building ICU.  I just look right into that ladies eyes and said "She made it?"  and she smiled right back at me and said yes she made it!  She handed me a note with her room number on it and told me to wait till the doc came down to talk to us.  I turned to walk over to Dion with tears in my eyes and huge relief on my face and half the people in the waiting room started to clap for us.  We had all been exchanging stories about out family members and Dani's story had captured so many hearts.  Boy what a hug I got from Dion when I told him she made it through her surgery! 
   Soon the nurse came and got us and took us to 5th floor founders 5th floor founders 5th floor founders 5th floor founders ...try and say that 10 times..... hahaha ... just as we stepped off the elevator there was a doctor there to greet us and tell us how her surgery went.  He said he was there for her whole surgery and that her heart looked good.  She had some extra bleeding during the surgery and the hematoma was huge.  But they managed to get all the bleeding under controll with drugs and fixed the hematoma.  He said she now has a new aortic mechanical valve a new mitro mechanical valve and a new aortic graft.  I think that qualifies her to be the NEW BIONIC WOMEN.   Doesnt it??   He said it was very complicated because her tissue was very slushy and it was like sewing with a needle and thread into butter.  I asked him how did he manage to do it?  He said..."We just took our time and made very intricate stitches on her.  Thats what took us so long."  Then he told us we could go see her for a little while but that we needed to go get some rest because she was going to need us in the morning when they start to take her off the induced coma.  The next few days will be tough ones and they will be watching her for any signs of internal bleeding but so far she was looking good.
   When we got to her room ... she looked good her color was great.  They had a warming blanket on her to bring her body temp back up as she had been in a very cold state during the surgery to protect her other organs.  She was on a resperator but seemed to be resting easy.  She had drain tubes in her lower chest just under her rib cage and a drain tube where the hematoma had been. 
   The nurse let me and Dion listen to her heart it sounded so great!  Just ticking away like a timex watch!  Maybe we should nickname her timex.  (takes a licking and keeps on ticking)  heheh lol we stayed with her and talked to her for about an hour or so.
     Then we decided to come back to the Penn Tower and try and get some sleep so we can be there to support Dani as she comes out of her coma tomorrow. When we left her body temp had risen to 96 degrees and they said they would take the heating blanket off when it reached 97 but that she looked great and her blood loss at the time was not looking bad at all. She has her own nurse one on one. And she told us she was looking good.
         Im sitting down here in the main loby of the Penn Tower right now.. there is no internet in the room but i can pick it up down here.  Its late so I'll let you all go for now.  Thanks everyone for all your prayers and support.  I will post more tomorrow about her progress.  :)   Vel