Good News and Bad News

Cooper is out of surgery and we are just waiting to go see him now. The good news is that the new pacemaker placement went very well and he tolerated the procedure with flying colors. The bad news is that the old pacemaker is so imbedded in his abdominal muscle and so high up that the cardiologist (who is not a true surgeon) did not feel comfortable going in and removing the old one. She thought there would be a cardiothoracic surgeon available to help her get the old one out, but no such luck. :( The picture is a diagram of where the pacemaker was placed, but just a little more toward the underarm. It's actually right under the armpit.

So . . . we are now waiting to hear what our next step is. It appears that they may try to go back in tomorrow and get the old one out. Unfortunately, that means he can't eat after midnight again and it means general anesthetic tomorrow (assuming they can squeeze him in tomorrow). We are going to push for them to do it now instead of having to come back another time. The cardiologist and I both agree the old one needs to come out because he essentially has two pacers running at the same time right now. The old one has been turned down so that it doesn't interfere with the new one, but there are no guarantees that it won't interfere.

I think I'm most dreading going to tell Cooper right now that he's not done. :(