Here We Go!

I just got out of the cath lab. Nate went in holding me tight, but very brave and quiet - and most likely just unsure of what was all around him. That was at 9:45am.

Now about 3 hours of waiting. Don and I just got a muffin (thanks for the recommendation, Dr. Mike!). So we'll sit and wait it out, with Drew Carey on The Price is Right as our soundtrack, lol! It's empty and quiet in this area so it's nice.

After he recovers here, we'll head back to Children's, and to another familiar face: when we got here this morning, I saw someone familiar, and kept staring (hopefully not creepy!) until I realized the nurse on the ward is one of my Schmidt cousins!! A nice bit of sunshine in our day.

Here are some pics from Don's phone. Always nice to have construction zones to watch to pass the time.

Thanks for your prayers. They are being felt every moment.

Settling in...

Today was pretty easy for everyone. The Pre op appointment went smoothly and was more discussion than anything.

We wandered around a bit this afternoon and our 'moose' enjoyed his lunch at Montana's. Lunch in a truck -can't go wrong with that!! It was lovely to run into some friendly strangers - Hi Karen's mom - thanks for the wonderful visit and encouragement at the mall!! And now that we're settled in at the Ronald McDonald house, it was great to chat with the parents of an ortho client who is at Children's.

Don and Nate are enjoying some air hockey and pool right now. Will get him ready for bed soon. It will be an earlier morning than usual :)

The jury is still out on the use of Versed prior to the cath. Will depend who is doing the anesthetic and how Nate is doing with everything.

Thank you for each prayer and encouragement we have already received.

The Week...

Thank goodness for Lego!!!  Here are my two favorite Lego Creators.  The boys can spend hours in "Lego Land", the room that they have devoted to building and creating!

And hopefully Lego help pass the time in the coming days, too!  It's time for Nate's heart cath.  This is a first for us, so not sure exactly what to expect, but feeling relatively calm and prepared.  As for Nate - he's great, since at this point he doesn't know what's coming up!

He has really turned a corner, when it comes to medical appointments, in the last few months.  He's been cooperative, quiet and content!  My biggest hope is that he won't be royally ticked at me (and the world!) when he wakes up from it.

Our plan is to tell him he has a regular heart appointment tomorrow (Tuesday), which shouldn't be a problem with him.  We have the pre op appointment at 11:00am at HSC.  I'll know more about the day to come after we talk to the anesthetist.  I'm hoping for a cocktail that will reduce the fight or anxiety that he may feel on Wednesday morning when some familiar things (such as not eating/drinking, those horrible gowns, getting the IV) start happening!

We'll tell him that we have another appointment the next day, but for this one they want to watch his heart while he's sleeping.  Think it will work??  At this point, the plan is to report to HSC at 7:30am on Wednesday, with the procedure starting at 9am. They expect he will be under general anesthetic for about 3 hours, the length of the procedure.  After a 2 hours of recovery, he'll be brought to the Children's Hospital to spend the rest of the day.  That's where my bag of tricks come into play.  Hoping the new Lego set and the stack of movies will help pass the time in recovery (about 6-7 hours), during which he has to lie still.

If all goes well and routine, he will be discharged in the evening, but us 'out of towners' are asked to stay in Winnipeg for the next night as well.

Brady will be happily staying with my Mom and Dad, which I'm thankful for!

That's it for now - I'm sure I'll have a chance to update the blog along the way!  Thanks for your prayers!

To Switch or Not to Switch....

Here's the update:

Nate totally rocked his appointment yesterday!  If you saw my update on Facebook, you'll know he did a fabulous job.  He was totally calm and quiet (seriously, no screams!!), he did exactly what was needed of him.  It was like a different boy!  I was SO pleased, if not surprised!

Everyone was surprised at his gradient.  Right after surgery, two years ago, we were at about 50-60, with the hopes that the pressure would increase as he grew.  Well, it didn't increase, and unfortunately decreased to around 30 a few months ago, and was holding steady there.

Yesterday, it was back up to 50-60!  That's great, but still is not where we would like it to be.  His liver was great, and he is not showing signs of failure.  However, the leakage is still severe.  The conference that I thought was going to happen after our last appointment, did not occur as the surgeon was away for several weeks, but did happen yesterday afternoon after we left.  So, here is where we are at.

Dr. Rebeyka, the cardiac surgeon in Edmonton, who did Nate's first surgery, feels that surgical intervention will be required at some point, sooner rather than later, and is suggesting the 'Double Switch' procedure, where 2 major things happen:  First, the arteries are switched to their correct ventricles (arterial switch), and second: the atrial switch, to redirect the blue blood and red blood to their normal ventricles.  This doesn't get rid of his leaky valve, but remember back in Biology class when you learned about the two ventricles (pumps) in the heart?  One is a strong one that has to push the blood out to circulate through the body, and one is weaker and only has to push the blood to the lungs?  So, by switching the jobs of the ventricles back to their intended function, the very leaky valve which is now having to pump throughout his body, will only have the workload of pumping to the lungs.

Before we determine if that is, indeed, the direction that we need to head, a heart catheterization first needs to be completed.  We have a tentative date set in September for that - I'm assuming it's in Winnipeg, but I don't know that for sure.  This will give the team an accurate representation of the heart function and it's pressures.  With that information, they will meet again to decide if the double switch is the best option.  From there, we would need to do an MRI, which can't be done locally, so we'd go to Edmonton for that.

So, those are the facts for now!  A lot is yet to be determined, but now you know where things are at!

Thanks for praying for us all yesterday.  We had a great day and enjoyed time at The Forks and a Goldeyes game in the evening.  A nice end to the day!

Today is the day!

Today is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it!

We're heading to Winnipeg to see Nate's cardiologist this afternoon.  We're praying for some awesome news and would love if you'd pray along with us!

Picnic!

The boys and I went to Winnipeg for a fun picnic this afternoon.  It was put on by the Circle of Hearts Family Support Network, for the heart kids and their families from Variety Children's Heart Centre.

Doug Brown, who just retired from the Blue Bombers stopped by for autographs.
Does Nate look almost as excited as when.......

The Oilers came to the Stollery?  lol!!

But Brady was pretty pumped and his enthusiasm made up for Nate's!!.....And Doug brought his dog!

There were bouncy things...

And Bouncy slides....

Water toys...

A candy scramble....

And this crazy moose tried to start a water fight with Brady.

It was a great afternoon!!   The Tim Horton's van also made a stop at the picnic.  Thanks to everyone who volunteered their time and energy and gave these kids some great memories.

We also got to finally meet a family that we've been in contact with since Nate's surgery, but they have only been 'virtual friends' till now!   Thanks for the visit!!!