Pre-Admission Testing

We went to Nationwide Children's Hospital today for "Pre-Admission Testing."  It wasn't too bad; just long.  We left the house at 8:30am and returned at 2pm.

High point: Meeting Dr. Galantowicz.  What an incredibly kind man.  Very gentle and sweet with Julia.  Very peaceful and down-to-earth.  Some of you know that we had a "hilarious" meeting with another surgeon in Raleigh, just to learn a little more about the surgery.  Whereas that individual treated us as if we were scum that some how came to inhabit his office, Dr. Galantowicz was kind, attentive, and treated our daughter with dignity.

This is such a happy hospital.

Low point: Blood draws.  Julia is such a trooper during all of these appointments, and she is so adorable and sweet despite some of the things they put her through.  For instance, the blood pressure cuff left significant bruises on her leg today, yet she didn't whimper a bit.  However, when she got her blood taken, she screamed.  This is so unusual for her, so you know it had to hurt.  When we got blood drawn about a month ago, she didn't even bat an eyelash; I wish I knew what was different today.  Her blood was pretty thick today.  The one good vial will go to testing her thyroid level, as her TSH level a month ago was sky-high and led to her being put on Synthroid.  The other vial that they got wasn't usable because it had a clot in it.  Thankfully, the doctors decided she didn't need to have all the other blood drawn that had been ordered because they saw how much pain she was in.  We'll know Monday if her TSH level has come down sufficiently to allow for surgery on Wednesday.

Beautiful spaces.

Everything in between:
We met a lot of wonderful people today who may care for Julia when she is inpatient.  They swabbed her nose to check for any viruses; we'll know on Monday if she is clear and will be able to proceed with surgery on Wednesday.  They did a complete physical on her and got her weight (4.65 kilos [10.25lbs]!  Dr. G congratulated me on "really fattening her up!").  A nurse practitioner went through the surgical process in detail with us, which was so helpful.  I'll spare you the details, but we talked for an hour and half about this.  Some interesting facts: Julia's heart will be stopped while her blood pumps outside her body during during surgery through the heart-lung machine.  Tiny stitches will be made to attach 2 Gore-Tex patches (yep, same material as your rain jacket) to her heart wall to separate right from left side.  Her one common heart valve will be gently separated in to two (the mitral and tricuspid valves).  Her breastbone will be separated so they can repair her heart, but it should repair itself quite quickly.  They use dissolvable stitches to repair bone!!

How Julia feels after such a big day!