A Very Different Kind of Blog Post - Noah's Surgery

My 18-year-old son, Noah, aka the Future Architect, is scheduled for open heart surgery tomorrow. It is to correct a congenital defect. I wanted to write something moving and forceful and reflect back on his first surgery when he was five months old, but I find I can't. Maybe when the fear has unclutched my heart I can be poetic and insightful and meaningful. Now I just dread the days to come until we come out the other side of this unavoidable life experience. The doctors, not unkindly, tell us replacing a pulmonary valve is routine. To them, of course, not us.

Noah has been brave, proud, scared and determined. I want to shout, scream and rant at the fates. But the fates that gave him holes in his heart and a constricted pulmonary artery (which lead to the enlarged right ventricle that prompts tomorrow's repair) also gave him more heart than anyone else I know. He is thoughtful, emphatic, caring, kind, full of community spirit and what we Jews call "ruach" which is difficult to define in English, but something like a caring spirit that suffuses all his actions. Not to say he can't be a know it all or thoughtless teenager, but those are just passing irritants with him, not his true soul.

There is a lot more I want to write about this experience and maybe I will.
But for now, thanks in advance for your kind prayers and good thoughts.

UPDATE: Noah's surgery on Thursday went well and he continues to improve. A big thank you to the doctors and nurses at Children's Hospital, Oakland.

UPDATE2: Noah came home Sunday. He is doing well.

UPDATE3 (8.24.09): We just dropped him off at college. He's still has a few weeks left of taking it easy, but he's doing great.