He's done!

Just ran into Dr. Hanley coming down the hall to talk to us. He said everything went great and Cooper is doing well. His heartbeat is strong and there were no arrhythmia...the procedure done at PCH a few weeks ago appears to have "held" well.

The most emotional part of the conversation came when Dr. Hanley said that this wasn't actually a congenital heart defect like we thought. His valve was structurally normal, had developed normally, and most likely he was born with a normal heart.

The tricuspid valve is like a parachute -- there's a chute part and all these cords that attach the chute (valve leaflets) to the heart muscle. One of the cords had come loose from the leaflet. Dr. said we can't know for sure how this happened but it would most likely be infection or blunt trauma to the chest.

According to orphanage paperwork Cooper's heart murmur was identified the day he arrived at the orphanage when he was only a few days old. So, Dr. Hanley said he either developed an infection (either immediately after birth or possibly in utero just before birth) that affected his heart or he had some kind of trauma to the chest within those first few days.

Anyway, we're waiting to see him. He should be up here in CVICU within the half hour. He'll be sedated with a breathing tube for 12-24 hours then they'll slowly start waking him up and remove the breathing tube when he can breath on his own.

So relieved.