No Turning Back ...

... not that we'd want to anyway. Everything's ready for her surgery Monday. Yesterday she had her visit with the surgeon, Dr. Ranne. He expects her to take a little longer to recover due to her "compromised heart failure" and enlarged heart. He is a remarkable man and I feel very safe knowing that he's doing the surgery. Throughout his office there were newspaper articles on the charitable heart surgeries he has performed in less fortunate countries. After we left his office we went straight to the hospital for her pre-op visit. She was treated like royalty! Everyone had to stop and see her and talk to her. We met with the anesthesiologist who said that her reactions to the last general anesthetic were normal. She will be needing plasma and platelets because of her low weight. This will keep her blood from thinning out in the bypass machine. They'll use our blood to prime the machine. Debbie, Dr. Ranne's assistant went over the length of time (5 hours) and our visiting privileges after. For the first 24 hours we will only be able to see for 30 minutes at a time every 2 hours. This sort of upsets me, but they don't want anything to overstimulate her or upset her. Afterwards the lab drew blood and she had an EKG and chest x-ray done. We were given a special soap to wash her in the night before and a blue bracelet that has to be on when we come in. If it's not, they will have to do the blood work all over again and get new blood for her transfusion. (Yikes!)

After 5 hours in the hospital we went home to pick up the kids and return to the hospital for their tour. They were able to go back to the PICU and see the kind of room she'll be in. They'll only be allowed to go in to see her after the surgery for 5 minutes and 1 at a time. The Child Life therapist will have activities and crafts for them to do so they can help decorate her room. This is another way they can feel needed and that they're helping.