Hi everyone...

I know... it's been a while with pictures, and I'm not actually posting any new ones right now.  Maybe on Thursday, it will be what I do when I'm trying to kill 6-7 hours....

For those who don't already know... Gunnar will be having open heart surgery on Thursday.  We have been in a bit of a whirlwind, we only just found out last Tuesday.  We went out of town to visit Dan's family this weekend, and since we have been back, things just haven't calmed down.  I spent most of yesterday and today getting a few last minute things done... including buying a huge lot of toys to keep him occupied in bed for 5-7 days.  How does a 3.5 year old sit still for that long?  I guess we will find out.

The details of the surgery.... he has had a VSD since he was born.  It has always been considered moderate to large.  It is 10-12 mm in size.  Quite large if you think about it, but not causing heart failure by any means.  We have been in wait & see mode since birth.  Echos every 3 months, chest xrays each year.  We even had a cardiac cath done more than a year ago, which said that the flow through the hole was "not significant".  We were waiting for a few things... one was for Gunnar to overcome his other medical issues.  One was for the FDA to approve a new procedure that would allow for the repair of this specific hole, in this specific location to be repaired with a catheter through the groin.  That got rejected last year...  And one was for Gunnar to show signs of heart failure (which would mean he needed the surgery).  Finally, Gunnar's cardiologist said that he didn't want to wait for Gunnar to go into failure to fix it.  So, we scheduled the consult and said we wanted to do the surgery soon.  He said next week.  We were shocked it could be that soon, but it's probably best.  

So... please keep Gunnar in your prayers.  Us too... we are trying to keep it all together for each other and for little Gunnar.  He is a tough little guy though.  I have no doubts that he will bounce back from this stronger than ever.  My tough little "warrior".  

For those of you who I have emails for, that I know follow this... I will email you updates as I can.  I will try to post an update here as soon as possible as well.