More than Halfway through

Just another update this afternoon. The surgical coordinator came out about an hour ago and told us that after looking and feeling Jason's valve that he was replacing it with a mechanical valve. So the good news in all of this is No More planned open heart surgeries to replace valves. The aneurysm will be completely replaced up into the trunk of the aorta and the valve is already sewn into the synthetic dacron material which will replace part of his aorta. This also means the surgery will take less time since they won't have to be sewing in his valve to the material. Needless to say we all have mixed reactions but know that it is all part of the grand plan of Jason's life. So Jason will be on an anti-coagulant- Coumadin (sp?) for the rest of his life and we will be able to hear his valve clicking open and closed when everything is really quiet, like at night or maybe during meditation :).
so we will be getting an update at a quarter to four this afternoon and expect him to be off the bypass machine by then and being sewn back up and ready to move to ICU. We are all mentally preparing for him to look swollen, with a lot of tubes, and completely sedated which will be hard to see I'm sure, but we will be happy to see him alive with his heart repaired. Until then.....