Welcome home ... again

Claira and I returned home Monday night to a house full of beautiful, vibrant and noisy children! Wow ... what an adjustment from sitting in a hospital room everyday for 3 weeks. We are soooooo glad to be here though! I missed the kids terribly. Evie hugged me and wouldn't let go. She wouldn't let Maddy near me either. Before Aunt Shannon came, she and I were deciding on whether or not she should come as soon as possible or when Claira had the G-tube surgery and before we were able to discuss it again, we both felt now was the time ... and it definetly was! It's so nice to have her here to sort of buffer the culture shock of coming home with a sick baby. Claira is still receiving breathing treatments with a nebulizer the hospital sent home with us. Every 6 hours she gets Xopenex which is a "bronchial dilator" and every 12 hours she gets Pulmicort which is a steroid. The Xopenex treatment is only for 2 more days, however we will continue the steroid until the doc says stop.
We have also been giving her an iron supplement to prepare her for surgery next week and it was making her terribly sick. Fortunately, we were able to stop that today ... because she will not have surgery next week for the G-tube. Why the change of plans? Well ... while were in the hospital the pediatric surgeon decided he wanted to do a fundoplication which is generally used in treating severe reflux. As we've established before, Claira does not have reflux. The surgeon explained that he was choosing to do this so that "just in case" she throws up from the heart failure complications she can't. It's a permanent procedure where the top of the stomach is wrapped around the esophagus so that the child can't throw up. Tom and I both were for the G-tube, however the additional procedure made us a little nervous. Tuesday we met with the pediatrician and he too expressed concern. In fact, so much so that he wanted me to have the cardiologist call him immediately after our visit the next day.
Wednesday was our first visit with our new cardiologist Dr. Kimberling (whom we both love!) and we asked him his opinion on next week's surgery. He said the only reason he was for it was because he thought we wanted it so desperately. We told him that the only reason we wanted it was because we thought this was going to be a long term problem, especially since they weren't admitting it was her heart causing the eating problems and that they wanted to wait for her 1st birthday to take action. He said he wants to do a heart cath in 3 weeks (March 13th) and then immediately schedule the surgery to repair her holes. He said if we can tough it out a few more weeks with the NG tube, that hopefully fixing her heart will also fix the feeding problem and she will not need a tube at all! If not, then we can do the G-tube. At least this way we can keep her from having to go through an additional surgery.
This is what we've been waiting to hear. Our prayers have been answered by opening the doctors' minds and doing what's best for Claira. We both finally feel some closure. We do have a rough time ahead of us, but at least we know in our hearts that this is what she needs.