Post surgery news from Dad

Pippa has made it through surgery and is in the paediatric intensive care unit.

The surgery went as well as could be expected given the underlying problems with her heart. The various parts of the operation were all able to be done as planned.

We had a long conversation with Pippa's surgeon afterwards and he was able to explain the positive and negative indicators to us. None of the negatives came as a surprise because they were the things we had been prepared for, although they are all serious.

Pippa is still a very unwell little girl. She is on life support and has an artificial heart/lung machine helping her heart (while it recovers from the surgery). It will be several days (at the earliest) until she can be taken off life support. There is really no way to know when. It is simply a case of her letting the doctors know she is ready.

We will post some photos of Pippa in the next day or so. They are quite confronting but we think it is important to show what she is going through without editing out the rough bits.

On a positive note, we got to spend some time with her this evening, although all we could do was hold one of her feet because it was the only part of her without a line, drain or monitor attached. She is heavily sedated and cannot respond to us at all, but it was our first chance to touch her and see that she is a real little person.