The central line in her neck was the scariest thing I had ever seen! It was stitched in place to hold it tight and was used for access to her veins. I thought it would scar, but it doesn't seem to be leaving a mark. Her chest tube, however, which is along her ribs, is leaving a scar. Of course, the surgery left a four-inch mark along her back and ribs.

It seemed like hours passed. While I was waiting, Troy arrived and I told him what little I knew. He left to make some calls to family on our mobile phone. (He had to go outside - hospital rules.) After another wait, the cardiologist arrived to explain what had happened to Colleen. Fortunately, some of the first words out of his mouth were "we can correct it with surgery." He started sketching the explanation on a piece of paper. He was almost finished when Troy returned, so Dr. Parikh started over.

He said they would correct the closed section of her aorta by going in and cutting out the coarctation and reattaching the aorta. It would take about two hours, with the critical stage taking less than 10 minutes. They would merely clamp off her aorta and would not reroute her blood supply.

There was a flurry of activity after that. Dr. Parikh left (to return later) and the surgeon, Dr. Abraham, came in an explained the problem and the surgery again. Dr. Williams also visited us again, as did the pediatrician, Dr. Gilliland. Everyone brought new information and answered our questions. Dr. Parikh told us that he had spoke with Dr. Gilliland and she had expressed concern that she should have caught the problem at Colleen's appointment the week before. He reassured us and her that it was not detectable then and we had done everything we could do to help Colleen.

Oh happy day! I got to hold Colleen for about 20 minutes on Friday. It took the nurse longer than that to get her ready so I could hold her without hurting her! It is so amazing to think 1 1/2 days later I was nursing her.

Our parents arrived and were brought up-to-date on the happenings. Finally, we were allowed to see Colleen for a few minutes. We were warned several times that her appearance might be startling. However, I was thrilled by how GOOD she looked. They had started her on a drug that helped the blood pump better and had her on a ventilator, so her color was close to normal. (As opposed to the sickening yellow-gray color her skin was when we arrived at the hospital.) We talked to her for a few minutes, then left so she could be taken to the operating room. The surgery team encouraged us to go to dinner after Colleen left for surgery, saying they would let us know as soon as they had news.

Time crept along. Eventually, Colleen returned from surgery and we caught a glimpse of her being wheeled back to her room. A tiny baby strapped to an adult-size table! It was the second time I had seen her like that during the day and it was hard to take.

Again, the nurses warned us the Colleen would have swelling in her face and we might not like what she looked like. But, she looked better than ever. She was pink and warm. If you could ignore the wires, the IVs and the ventilator, she looked healthy as could be!

I didn't want to leave, but our family and the nurses campaigned for Troy and I to go home and get a good night's rest. (Yeah, right.) We wanted someone to stay near her, so she could have a familiar voice to hear, so Troy's mom volunteered to spend the night in the hospital. Her presence there was very reassuring to me, even if Colleen did sleep through it!

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