Update #4

"Still working away.  Rebekah is very stable. Will update again in an hour."

Very, very thankful that Rebekah is doing so well!  One of the surgeon's concerns was the pulmonary hypertension that Rebekah battles in her left lung, so it is good to know that so far it seems that she has been unaffected by this.

There is really no way to guess how much longer the surgery will last.  Since we have gotten very vague updates, there is no way to predict exactly how far Dr. Bradley has gotten and how much he has left to do.  We'll continue updating each time we hear something new!  Thank you all for checking in and praying for Rebekah!!

Nancy

Update #3

"They are working away.  All is going well.  Will call back in an hour with another update."

Sounds like things are progressing well.  Mommy would like a little more detail, but I am happy to know that things are going well so far.  I'm working my way through photo editing to hopefully have some pictures to post in a little while.  It's keeping me busy, anyway!  :)

Nancy

Update #2

Things are still going well.  Two and a half hours into the surgery and Dr. Bradley is still working his way through the scar tissue to get to the "real" surgery part.  Scar tissue is completely normal and comes from Rebekah's previous surgeries.  We anticipated some of this, but usually it only takes an hour or so to work through it.  Dr. Bradley also cleans it up so that the next time he has to go in for surgery it will not be built up any more than it has to be.  Thankful to have such a great team of doctors, nurses, technicians, and anesthesiologists working with Dr. Bradley today!

We should have another update in roughly an hour.  We will post again with any new information as we get it!

Nancy

Update #1

We got our first update about 9:15 this morning.  It says “Started on time, all is going well.  Working on cutting through the scar tissue.” 
 

It will take Dr. Bradley quite a bit of time to cut through the existing scar tissue and clean up the incision area (from the previous surgery) before he moves into the lung/artery area.  As Mr. Pat, Rebekah's anesthesiologist, said this morning, "We're expecting a long day in there."  

We anticipate our next update coming around 10:30 or so unless there are problems between now and then.  Keep praying for our precious girl!

Nancy

For the Boys

Of course, the rest of you can watch the videos also, but I promised to put videos from our time at the South Carolina Aquarium on the blog for the boys.  :)

This first video is when I fed the sting rays.  There were pieces of shrimp to put on the end of the long pole-thingy and when I put it in the water the rays would come grab the food.  Literally.  I thought the one ray was going to jump out of the water to get to me.  They have pretty decent-sized teeth, too, so I'm sure they could really bite hard if you got your finger in the wrong place!

Again, this video clip is mostly for the boys' benefit.  This is the big ocean tank where we watched all the fish swimming around.  It was so much fun, and Rebekah loved it!  There were two divers in the tank while we were there (I didn't get them in the video), and one of the divers came to the side of the glass and gave Rebekah a "high-five."  She was so excited about that!  She even told the anesthesiologist this morning about "high-fiving" the diver that was in the tank!

Hope you enjoy the videos, boys!  Have a great day in school today, and we will Skype later.  I love you!!!

Mommy