(Written by Dana)

Location: Toronto

Health status: stable

Surgery: Wednesday morning

We received good news today. Maeve’s procedure to assess her heart pressure levels went smoothly. The procedure took about 2 hours. While the surgery was going on we walked around, had some Japanese cheese tart, phõ and did groceries. Stress breeds odd cravings…..

So the good news! They plan to replace only one valve (the one they did last time) and lightly repair a second valve called the tricuspid. Her aorta and pulmonary look like they’ll recover once the leakage in her other valves go away. This is a huge change from Friday where they said all four valves were beyond repair. We went from four valves needing repair to two and now one to be repaired. Still incredibly serious and risky but familiar territory at least.

Her heart’s ‘squeeze’ function looks ok but they’ll examine that more after her surgery tomorrow. Again much better than yesterday. This means her heart is more likely to restart and keep going after being stopped for surgery.

The cardiovascular surgeon walked us through the risks of tomorrow’s heart surgery. The percentages are terrifyingly high. Like I’d rather flip a coin or play Russian roulette. It’ll be a long day tomorrow - anywhere between 10-12+ hours.

We plan to catch a movie, get some nails done, walk…. that’ll take us through at least 3 of the 10 hours ​😒​

We’re handling the stress ok. Theresa had a good cry last night after slathering a hair treatment on herself (ahem - and maybe me). I bought an iPad for “the children” (Theresa made sure it was in rose-gold thinking it’ll force me to keep my word). I find deep breathing and reminding ourselves of all the things we are grateful for helps a lot when the pressure gets too much. Pizza and beer also help.

Hold onto your seats and cross your fingers folks. Tomorrow is going to be intense.

#mightymaeve