After a few months of living in denial, except on Tuesdays, I guess it’s time to face reality again. We leave for Boston on Wednesday, November 12th for another procedure for Miss Natalie.
Over the past few months we have been seeing our cardiologist here in Bismarck and have been very optimistic that Natalie’s heart is actually growing and showing signs of increased function in the left ventricle.
The hard part comes with the uncertainty of this visit. I have such a hard time not knowing how long or what exactly is going to happen once we get there. We do our part and take her to all her appointments and Dr. Fernandez says everything looks good and that is all we know. We really have no idea on what will actually happen while we are there. Dr. Fernandez thinks that they may go in and dilate or enlarge the stint they placed in September or they may add another stint to increase the blood flow, or they might do something completely different. We have no idea. That is the hardest part. We just have to sit back and trust the doctors that we have never meet and only talked with on the phone one time for 10 minutes. She is our baby and we have no idea what they have planned for her. That feeling is just more than I can take now as we get closer to our trip.
We will check in on Thursday for all her pre-op tests. They say to expect to be there for up to 8 hours. Are you kidding me? Eight hours with a 6 month old. Then we will bring her back on Friday morning for her procedure. We will have to stop feeding her sometime in the early morning and I can’t imagine that will go over very well. Natalie is a great little eater now. Once they take her back she will have an MRI and Echo before she goes into surgery. I remember so clearly the last time went sent her back. She didn’t know anything was going on and she looked so little on that big bed. She was just looking around. I can’t imagine what it will be like this time when we have been snuggling together for 6 months now and she laughs and smiles and talks now. It’s so different this time.
Once she is in surgery they will do a heart cauterization through her femoral artery and move into the heart where they will check her pressures, values and measure for growth in the left ventricle. They can get the best look at her heart this way. After doing all of this they will determine the best plan for moving forward with Natalie. Right now the plan is just to have the cath, but if they see something that they feel needs to be addressed now they have her scheduled for open heart surgery on December 18th.
I pray that they come back and say that everything looks great and we can send her home to keep growing. I am not emotionally ready for a big open heart surgery and me being selfish, I don’t have any desire to spend her first Christmas in Boston. It’s bad enough not to be able to go to Billings for Christmas, but to be in Boston for an additional 2-4 weeks after surgery is not high on my Christmas wish list.
When people talk about faith in God, this experience makes it all much more real. Here, let me hand my baby to a total stranger and we will talk to you in about 3 hours. The only thing holding her at this time is the hands and arms of God. Oh, how you believe in God at these moments more than ever. It’s a good thing that we are handing her over to the hands of God and he is not a stranger. Not a stranger at all. He has his hands and feet working on this earth every day. Praise God for the wisdom and talents that he has placed in the hands of these doctors who we do not know. We know God and he knows us. He loves Natalie more than we do, if that is possible.
Brad and I will keep you all updated through the blog and on facebook . Thank you to everyone who has been praying for Natalie. We get weak and distracted. I told Brad I can see how the disciples fell asleep while trying to pray for hours. I can barely make it 3 minutes some nights and that is where you all pick up for us. Your prayers and our prayers are heard by the same God! He knows when Brad and I are weak and he hears all your prayers for us and gives us strength to keep going. Natalie is so lucky to have God armies praying for her. Thank you to everyone!
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