Yesterday morning Abby had her pre-op appointments down at Childrens Mercy. Her first appointment was at 9:30am and that was for an EKG & Echo. She rocked the EKG-easy peasy! And 95% of her Echo she rocked too! Her Echo was over an hour long so as you can imagine there is only so many suckers and Bubble Guppies episodes even she could handle! But all in all it was great! Then it was off to the Cardio Clinic. There Abby had a quick check up & blood draw. The blood draw by far was the worst few minutes of her day but she rallied fast! We met with our nurse practisioner, anesthesia, and her surgeon Dr Pastuszko before heading for a few chest X-rays. We went over everything step by step which was good-I'm a the more the information the better. We got the green light for surgery and got her surgery time...11am on Monday. The surgery will take 4-6 hours depending on what will need to be done to repair her pulmonary valve stenosis. The plan is to close her 9mm hole (9mm is roughly the circumference of the tip of your pinky finger but keep in mind her heart is only as big as her tiny fist). They will close it one of two ways-if there is enough tissue he will just sew the hole closed. If there is not enough tissue he will take a tiny piece from the heart sack and patch the hole. Dr P said he doesn't have a preference either way as both are good options. After the repair is he made he will take her off the bypass machine and see how the valve is reacting. Our hope is that patching the hole makes the PVS pretty much go away but we won't know until Monday. One cool fact we learned was that he will wire Abbys breastbone back together and the wires will stay in her forever! He said but don't worry she won't set off the metal detectors at the airport! After surgery she will be in ICU until at least Tuesday morning. The goal in ICU is to keep her comfortable and start the process of removing things like her breathing tube, central line, precautionary pacemaker lines, drainage tube and so on. The goal is to move to the cardio floor Tuesday where we will all be a lot more comfy. Then its just a wait and see how she does. Dr P said she will be in the hospital for 4-7 days which is just mind-blowing! We were told that the bigger kids say that their chests are just sore not painful but feels like their insides have been moved around which makes total sense. We were sent home with a few pre-surgery instructions. After bath yesterday and tomorrow we have to wipe her down with CHG cloths (they are used to help prevent infection). And we also have to apply Mupirocin Ointment (an antibacterial ointment) on the middle of her chest and in each nostril twice a day. Other than that we are just having a normal weekend and trying to get everything ready for next week. We have to be at the hospital at 9:30am Monday morning and her surgery is scheduled to start at 11am. After much thought and discussion Vince & I decided to only let the 6 grandparents be at the hospital during surgery. We are both touched by all the offers to come down and wait with us but we just feel like it would be to much for us. But after she is moved to the cardio floor on Tuesday we welcome visitors! Again thank you for all the love, prayers, help & support you have given us. We are beyond blessed and Abby has no idea just how many people are praying for her. So please keep those prayers coming! I promise to do my best to update as much as I can via text, Facebook & the blog (but the blog will likely be the last form I will use for a few days).
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