Something I left out from yesterday is that Sam had two transesophageal echocardiograms -- one to baseline his heart function before the surgery was started, then another after the patch was put in place over the VSD and he was off bypass to verify there wasn't any leakage and that everything was working as expected. Once that second test confirmed that everything was good, they began to close him up. So what shows up now is a little red spot on the upper left side of his lip-- just a sore from some of the physical trauma of going in through his mouth for that test. The transesophageal echocardiogram gives an excellent picture of all four chambers and valves of the heart whereas a standard (transthorasic) echocardiogram will miss the back of the heart.

Also, there was some blood in Sam's urine, but that is somewhat expected since the heart-lung machine is pretty rough on red blood cells. Any that are damaged will be flushed from his system as waste products.