Pre-op

Hattie's pre-op appointment was a long one.  When we first arrived at Children's, they got her height and weight, checked her oxygen levels and since she was still smiling, they did her EKG (measures the electrical current and rhythms of her heart).  About two weeks ago, she did not cooperate at ALL when we were at the cardiologist and wanted nothing to do with anyone touching her or making her be still.  In fact, our cardiologist couldn't even send the results to her surgeon because they were so skewed from her screaming and wiggling.  Paul and I were pretty nervous about how pre-op would go.  We were pleasantly surprised that she rocked the EKG, giving dirty looks to the nurse only a few times.  Then we did the echo (ultrasound of her heart).  It took about 45 minutes and Paul and I were sweating when it was over from having to constantly entertain (think waving light up wands, making her stuffed puppy dance, trying to feed her a sucker, showing her apps on our phone, playing peek-a-boo, singing our ABC's, making silly faces) and holding her down.  Overall, she did okay with it given that we were asking her to lay still for 45 minutes. They were able to get the results they needed.

Next, we met with Dr. Gremmels, the Children's cardiologist.  We had about a page and a half of questions for him and he was great about answering them, drawing diagrams for us, and making friends with Hattie. She kept going over to him and patting his leg - and she may or may not've spilled milk on his pants.  Thankfully he is a daddy too!

After that, we went across the street to the hospital and had a quick bite, then met with a nurse, an anesthesiologist and had blood draws and chest x-rays.  We toured the heart floor and then had more time with the nurse.  Hattie's labs came back showing that she was positive for antibodies, which affects what type of donor blood she'll need while on bypass. It's not super common, so they had to do another blood draw to be able to run more tests.  She was spent at this point and cried really, really hard.  As parents, it's so hard to watch that and to hold her down while she is so distraught.

Six hours was a long time to be there and all three of us were exhausted and more than ready to go home.  We picked up Owen and school and then had dinner at my mom and dad's before leaving Owen there for the weekend.  One of the things that really gets me emotional is when I think about the two of them having to be apart.  They adore each other and thinking about them saying good-bye just brought me to tears every time I thought about it.  Thankfully, it went okay - one more part of this whole thing that I was dreading is now behind us.