Stephen had his Cath Lab done last Friday, and the results were what they expected. Which was good news. I was waiting to update until I was clear on the details, so I’ll get more into that later.

His recovery from surgery was amazing. He was groggy and grumpy in the hospital, but as soon as they took his wires off and the IV out, he was ready to play. He wanted to roll over and bounce around. I was shocked how quickly he returned to his old self! What a champ.

Here’s where the surprise starts:

Last night while he was getting his bath, I noticed a red lump on his leg, right above the incision area. I did a double-take, but wasn’t sure if it was new or if I just hadn’t noticed it before through the bruising. When the husband got home, he also looked at it and couldn’t remember seeing it before. The thing that was weird to him was that you could feel his pulse really clearly if you pushed on the lump. So we called the cardiologist and he wanted to see Stevie first thing this morning. I had a hard time sleeping last night, imagining what it could be.

The doc took a look at it this morning to confirm his suspicion that it was an aneurysm. So basically, the artery where they inserted the cath did not heal properly. Here’s your biology lesson for the day… The artery has layers. When all of the layers do not heal, the artery is not held together properly. This is what was causing the lump. The artery walls are weak so its bulging. The cardiologist has done these cath labs 1,000 times and never seen this happen (OF COURSE!) So he referred us back to Stephen’s original heart surgeon, who should be able to repair it within the next few days. He assured us that his life is not in danger, so we just need to get it taken care of as soon as we can.

But it’s one more surgery. And it kind of makes me sick to my stomach.

So I’m staying positive. I know he’ll be fine. But the hardest thing for me is figuring out the difference between my motherly instincts and my brain just being tired and overreacting. It’s hard to trust yourself at a time like this. Plus at this point, it’s almost comical that he would have another complication. Like someone is messing with us. But I’m confident that he is always in good hands – literally and figuratively. Sorry to be greedy, but I’m going to keep asking ya’ll to keep sending your happy thoughts and prayers in our direction. All the support just helps us get through these little hiccups. (And the not so little ones too.)