Miss Doctor Jean

 

That is what J calls his cardiologist. 

We went in for his 6 week checkup on Wednesday and to discuss his surgery.  I was pretty nervous.  I knew this was coming.  The truth is that I kind of convinced myself that he had improved since being home.  He hasn’t been blue in a while.  So I wondered if he really needed the surgery…but I knew he did.  Tuesday night I went in his room and prayed over him.  The first thing I did was dedicate him to God.  I told God that I wanted J’s life to glorify Him and I asked Him to help me accept whatever came in his life.  I also asked Him to guide us in any decisions we needed to make for him.

So we went to the clinic where our doctor sees him.  Our nurse, Linda (who we LOVE), came to the waiting room to get us and it was so nice to see someone we knew.  We stopped to get his vitals and other nurses were stopping by to say how cute he was.  After a few bizarre oxygen level readings, we came to the conclusion that his has not changed.  We didn’t think it would have, but we always check.

Miss Doctor Jean said that this surgery will help make his quality of life so much better.  He will have more energy and stamina.  So the next step is to have a heart cath done.  They will put one in up by his neck and another one in through his groin.  This is so they can get a good idea of what exactly they need to do.  At the same time they will do an ultrasound.  He has spleen activity, but they aren’t sure if he has one or multiple spleens. This is basically an exploratory adventure.  She wants to keep him overnight to monitor him afterwards and she said it will give us a test run of the ICU.  After they have the results his case will go to a meeting of all the cardiologists and surgeons and they will come to a decision on what exactly they need to do and how they will do it. 

His surgery will most likely be the first of June.  She wants him to have plenty of time to heal before he starts school (a 5 year old program) in the fall.  She tried to prepare us for what we would experience.  She said he will be in the hospital for a week to 10 days and after that he will not feel well for another 2 to 3 weeks.  It will take his body time to get used to working with more oxygen.  Then she told us what to expect when we first see him after surgery.  He will be on a ventilator.  There will be multiple tubes coming out of his chest.  He will also have blue wires coming out of his chest that are connected to his heart so that they can control how it beats (like a pacemaker).  He will also have draining tubes coming out of his side.  Yes, the thought of seeing him like that makes me tear up.  Our doctor is so great though.  She said she will ask the nurse to cover him up for our first viewing and slowly roll it down.  Our case is special all the way around.  His insides are so complicated.  He should have had this surgery 2 years ago so they aren’t sure exactly how he will respond to all of this.  Most parents who go through this surgery with their child have already seen their child like this because they have had surgeries like this since birth.  I feel very confident in our doctor and the staff at the hospital.  They are very interested in him and helping him.  They are just so helpful.

They also told us to go on our vacation before the surgery.  He has been begging us to go to the beach so we got that booked today.  No swimming or sunshine for him this summerL.

So the doctor visit was very informative.  Of course I’m scared…very scared.  But I feel a great peace about all of this from my faithful Father above.  We knew before we even saw his picture that he had a broken heart that would need to be fixed.  We also knew that it needed to be loved!  This will be his first surgery with parents and I’m so blessed that I get to be with him.  I know God is going to do something awesome with him.

Please pray for us as we prepare for this next road on our journey.

Katie