So this page, is for those who want to know about the surgery Jordan had this year.

On Feburary 27th,2001, Jordan went into theatre to have a vsd closure, which is in normal talk, having a hole in his heart patched up. The discovery was made at birth that he had what they call a heart murmur, and we have been to and from doctors and specialists since that time. The problem was not life threatening to Jordan at the beginning...but it would have been, soon, as he developed some muscle growth and scar tissue, that surrounded his Aorta. From one visit to the Heart Specialist....to the next, this muscle growth had increased in size...it had basically DOUBLED. So that was the main reason for his surgery...to remove this muscle growth, as it was restricting the blood flow to his lungs, and had it been left longer, major problems would have been likely to occur. The Hole in Jordans heart, caused very minimal problems...if any for him....we were lucky in that aspect. The Doctors decided to go ahead with the surgery when he turned 3, as that age is a good age to operate, as the child recovers quicker, and they are bigger also, then a younger child... Soooo...we dragged our sorry butts up to The Prince Charles Hospital, in Chermside, Brisbane and had Jordan admitted on the 26th Feb. He had ECG's, X-rays...Bloodtests...just about everything you could think of...on the day before his surgery. They told us that afternoon that Jordan would go into surgery at about 9am, having his pre-meds at about 7am the next morning. My goodness, those pre-meds do a brilliant job! Jordan was so groggy he could barely sit up 10 minutes after the nurses gave him the medicine *LOL*
At a little before 8am on Tuesday the 27th February, 2001, i walked beside Jordans hospital bed as he was taken to be prepared for surgery...I kissed him goodbye, and I walked away..to go and wait.
About 2 hours later, i was paged to go to the ICU waiting room, i waited until a nurse came out, and told me that the surgeon had finished, and he would be there to talk to me about it soon. Jordans surgeon, Dr.Jalali, came to the ICU waiting room, sat down beside me, and told me what had happened...The surgery was a success! Jordan was still in the Operating Theatre at this time, as the Surgeon doesn't do the closing...so, we waited about 45 minutes more, and then out he came...and was wheeled straight into ICU. The nurses came and got me, and I went to see my precious little boy. He was still under anesthetic at the time, they kept him that way until 5:30pm. Here's some pictures......


These Pictures show Jordan when he was still under anesthetic. He was hooked up to a ventilator (tube in his nose) as he couldnt breathe on his own at that stage. A very small tube down his throat to his stomach, draining out fluid. A large tube in his chest, that sat just around his heart...there's a little pocket surrounding the heart, the tube sat in there...to drain any blood or fluid away. He was hooked up to all the monitors, taking his pulse, recording his heart beat, checking the oxygen in his bloodstream, things like that. He had a drip in his neck, where the anesthetic was put into, a line in his right wrist, to take blood samples from and one in his hand, to put medications in. You can see a little box thing taped to him, with little wires coming out...those wires are run into his chest, and imbedded in his heart...it's a pacemaker, incase his heart had problems, they could give it a "jump start" so to speak. He was also hooked up to a Cathedar.

So, at about 5:30pm they took him off the anesthetic and let him wake up. He did well...there was some stress with the ventilator being down his throat, but they soon took that out, and put the little oxygen tube "prongs" in his nose...As soon as he was breathing on his own...which was pretty much straight away.

These pictures were taken the day after his surgery...They were able to take the tube from his stomach,(that drained blood and fluid from around his heart) as he was doing so well, they took the little pacemaker box away, but they left the wires attatched to his heart...just incase. He was taken from ICU back to the Childrens ward, and was cared for there until he was discharged from the hospital.

The 2nd day after Jordans surgery I think this picture, below, was taken, as you can see, he was still connected to the oxygen but he was happily playing in the playroom of the Childrens ward, Back to his usual cheeky self! His eyes though, had very black rings around them, which is an indication of low iron. He was put on medication to get the iron levels back up again, but as we couldn't trick him into taking a tablet, we had to give him medicine...which tastes metallic...and smells even worse...now THAT was a hard task *L*

Jordan recovered quite well, and quickly, and on Monday, March 5th, He was released from the hospital...A week after he was admitted.
This picture was in the childrens ward, just as we were about to leave for home.(He's reaching for a helium balloon that was getting away from him *L*)


Instructions were quite clear, we couldn't pick him up under the arms, he couldn't ride his bike, he couldn't be shoved in the chest...normal things you would expect not to be able to do after heart surgery.

This picture, above was a few days after we got home, his chest healed wonderfully well, there's still a rather large scar there for the moment, but as he grows, it will decrease in size.

As you can see, he is now all back to normal, a happy, healthy 3 year old boy :)