Monday, February 22, 2010

The Plan...

And we thought we had it all figured out, huh?!?  That "surgery schedule" I posted yesterday was just to psyche everyone out, like I had some control or something!!! :-)

We took our RV to San Antonio Sunday night and slept in the parking lot of The Methodist Hospital, as "planned".  We woke up this morning at 4:45AM to get everything ready for Chrissie's hospital registration by 5:30AM.  Chrissie woke up smiling and excitedly exclaimed in an unusually raspy voice, "I ready get my heart fixed."  Then she let out a big, yucky, wet, deep cough.  UGH!  The cardiac surgeon stressed that if Chrissie woke the morning of surgery with any sign of illness, even just the sniffles, that we would need to cancel her surgery. 

I went to hug Chrissie after she coughed, and her back felt really warm.  I had brought a thermometer with me, so I stuck it under her arm to determine if she had fever.  (She wouldn't let me put it under her tongue.)  Sure enough, she had 101.4 (100.4, but I added a degree since I took it under the arm).  I called the hospital staff that the surgeon had given me contact info for incase of illness the morning of surgery, and I explained to the sweet registrar what was happening.  She called the cardiac surgeon, then we received a return phone call letting us know that the surgeon was not comfortable performing surgery with Chrissie having these symptoms.  He canceled the surgery and asked us to call his office once it opened to reschedule.

In the meantime, I was texting our beloved cardiologist, Dr. Porisch, to let her know and get her opinion on things.  She said we would need to wait atleast 4 weeks to reschedule as it's top priority for Chrissie's immune system to build back up and be 100% healthy and strong.  Dr. Porisch also let us know that the homograft should be fine for another month.  That's a relief.

We called our pediatrician for an appointment to check out what's going on with Chrissie.  He couldn't fit Chrissie in until tomorrow, Tuesday, so we took that appointment for her to be evaluated to see if there's any infection we need to deal with.  Chrissie has not been sick one single day since she's been in Texas, but I know she had a lot of upper respiratory infections and pneumonia when she lived in Serbia.  With a resting oxygen saturation rate of 75%, this can be really dangerous.  As the day has progressed, Chrissie's cough has gotten worse, and I'm noticing some wheezing here and there.  She's asleep now, but I'm really glad we have an appointment with the pediatrician tomorrow.

We are waiting for the cardiac surgeon's office to call us back to let us know what new surgery date we might be looking at.  I will let everyone know just as soon as I know, but we are sure it will be atleast a month before we're able to reschedule, possibly longer.

For those who signed up to pray at a specific hour and/or bring us meals during this time, we ask you to save that slot and just reassign it to the new dates once we receive them.  We are so blessed to have so many prayer warriors and so many people blessing our family with meals.  Your support means the world to us, and we are so very grateful.

PS  Thanks so much, Amy, for updating our blog for all of Chrissie's mighty prayer warriors!!!


3 comments:

Kari Gibson said...

PRAYING FOR YOUR FAMILY!!!

Susan said...

Just when you think it's all under our control...

Ah, well...God knows the plan for little Chrissie and her heart. I will continue to pray that this is a short-lived thing for her and that she heals quickly.

Debi said...

Hi Patterson family!
I just found out about beautiful Chrissie and amazing Mattie today through the Riggs family blog.
I am now joining what appears to be a large prayer family for Chrissie.
I was sorry to hear of the delay after so much effort was put into lining up so many details to be there. Trusting God with you in learning to rest in His perfect timing. Praying that Chrissie's little body would be strengthened in these coming days and for special family times.
Love and hugs and prayers,
Debi
Beaverton, OR
debisue2@verizon.net

blog comments powered by Disqus