Natalie's Pre-Opt Appointment

Natalie had her pre-opt appointment today.  When we got the paper work, they said to be prepared to be there for 6 to 8 hours, I thought that was a little extreme, but 8 hours later, we were finally in the car leaving Children's for the day.

 

Natalie had the "works" done today.  She had an EKG, echo, lab work, xray and urine sample, twice.  Our morning started out smoothly for the first 30 minutes.  Her oxygen was 80, which is actually a little low for her in Dallas.  Dallas is a little lower elevation, so she normally runs a little higher than Amarillo.

 

She also got swapped for staph, which was negative by the way.  She got the bag again for urine sample, which she hated and cried off and on for the hour she had it on.  I told her that is why she needs to learn to use the potty, but that is to come is the upcoming future after surgery.

 

We did have a few surprises off and on with the fire alarm.  Children's is doing  a lot of construction still so I am sure someone hit something that they did not need to, but a flashing light off and on for 30 minutes at a time gets old.

 

She then, had her echo.  She did great during the echo, just kind of laid there and chilled. After echo, we met with Dr. Forbess to discuss her surgery. 

 

Natalie is first case on Monday morning.  Larry, Natalie  and I have to be at the hospital around 6am.  She will be taken from us around 7:30 am.  The first part of surgery is getting ivs in, her breathing tube in, etc.  The surgery will take around 4 to 6 hours, all depends on the scar tissue she currently has. 

 

She will be having the fontan operation with pulmonary valvectomy and main pulmonary artery division.  No, we were not aware of the pulmonary valvectomy and main pulmonary artery division.  Dr. Forbess said he does this when she is on bypass and it will help her in the future avoid blot clots in the pulmonary artery.   Forbess said it will look all clean and tie together nicely, he is a perfectionist...we love that about him!

 

Natalie enjoying a ring pop while waiting on Dr. Forbess

After we met with Dr. Forbess, we went for xray and lab work.  After we got back upstairs to visit with Dr. Forbess PA, JoAnne.  We found out, Natalie's urine sample was not looking good.  They wanted to do another one and this time, we decided to just cath her to get the urine quickly and figure out what our next step was.  At this time, we were not sure if we would have to post pone surgery a month or not. 

 

Natalie's urine came back positive for a UTI.  However, Dr. Forbess said we go could head with the surgery, but Natalie is on a high dosage of medication this weekend.  

 

After what felt like a marathon of a day, we still had some more information before leaving.  We continued to discuss everything with JoAnne and met with a few more people before getting the okay that we were done for the day, but not before stopping by the pharmacy for our antibiotic.  



Princess Natalie! 
She got a special surprise after her urine cath, not to mention the massive amounts of stickers she got over the entire day

We thank you all for the prayers for our safe travel to Dallas and for a good pre-opt appointment.  Overall our day was good, just long and emotionally draining.  Please pray for Natalie's UTI to start clearing up and for Larry and Carter to have a good father/son time this weekend before Larry heads to Dallas on Sunday.