The plan for surgery...

We had our pre-surgical appointments on Friday. And, whoa... what a long day it was! We started with registration, made our way down to radiology, back up to cardiology, over to the lab for blood work, and back up to cardiology for meetings with anesthesiology, our cardiologist, the echo tech, and the surgical nurse team. For those of you familiar with the clinic, you can appreciate how mentally and physically exhausted we feel!! Here's the brief re-cap of our 6 hour adventure:

-First, her surgery got bumped a bit. Sigh. She's now the second case scheduled for Tuesday. So, our estimated start time is about 1 pm.

-Surgery will be approximately 5-7 hours. That's a long time for us to stare at a wall.

-The good stuff: (1) she appears to have the perfect amount of pulmonary stenosis. I know that sounds weird, but it's true. In absence of the stenosis, her lungs could have been permanently damaged. Too much stenosis can prevent oxygenation. (2) She gained a pound. Woo Hoo!! The 24-hour feeding fest is reaping great rewards!! (3) it appears that her pulmonary artery and her aorta are in good position. It's too difficult to explain via blog, but just know that her great vessels are arranged in a way that will minimize the surgery a bit. The vessels don't need to be re-grafted or moved. That's a good thing. And, we are grateful for all the 'good' things!

-Her anatomy has been quite the talk at the clinic. While her mirror image organs are not rare, they certainly are not common. The teaching hospitals get really geeked up over this "weird" stuff. I'm already imagining an entire shlew of interns, residents, and fellows for morning rounds.

-And, finally... Shawna received the 'best baby ever' award from the cardiology department on Friday. Ok- not really. But, if they had such an award, she would certainly get it. Why? A two-hour echo WITHOUT the "happy juice" (aka Versed) They couldn't believe it. A 19 month old baby laid still and tolerated a two-hour echo. Twice. Yep- she's a trooper. :-)