My brother's 1st open heart surgery

When Gio was born the doctors weren't too sure whether he was going to survive through his first year of life. He had a very leaky valve, and a huge hole in his ventricular septum, which, I've heard, is a common heart defect. At about 3-4 months of age he received his first open heart surgery in San Francisco. At the time I was only 8 years old and I didn't know the severity of his situation. The day he received the surgery my parents left without telling me, or I just don't remember, and I was placed in the care of my aunt. I remember being at my grandma's house and my whole family was over and there was a camera being passed around. One by one they looked at the picture displayed on the camera, but when it came close to me the camera would be tilted away. I'm sure we all know that feeling of being the only one who doesn't know a secret, it's so awkward and it kind of makes you angry. Everyone's face grew very concern and the adults began to have these silent conversations that I couldn't hear. I grew angry and asked my aunt if "I could see the picture," she replied "I'll have to ask your mom," so she texted my mom and my mom replied that it was okay for me to see it. I believe, they gave me a little speech about what I was about to see before I saw it, but I again don't remember. What I do remember was what I saw on the camera, it was a picture of my brother laying on a hospital bed with tubes stuck under his skin, wires everywhere, dry blood between his fingers and a huge cut down the middle of his chest. It was honestly and still is a pretty painful picture to look at. Let me remind you, I wasn't told why my parents left, yet alone that my brother was going to have heart surgery. My brother stayed in the hospital for about 2-3 weeks. He got to go home with a portable oxygen tank, that would go everywhere with him and a huge tank for when he slept. We we were all taught how to use it and it was on 24/7. The surgery did not "fix" Gio's heart, the surgery only improved his severely defected heart to a moderate case. We quickly learned what that meant.