The Glenn

Playing on the floor at Katy & Greg's!

"I was very happy at 1 am!"

"I love to hold onto things now!"

So we had yet another recheck at Children's Hospital today with the cardiologist! Dr. Wheller said Haley's echo looked as good as any hypoplast's echo can ever look, so that was great news! Her blood oxygen levels, EKG, and blood pressures were all good too. Unfortunately she's still being a finicky eater, though we think she may be teething and that could be contributing to it, and she has only gained 0.1 kg in the last 10 days. So Dr. Wheller said he would present her to the surgeons either on Wednesday or Friday and recommend that she have her Stage 2 (the Glenn) procedure. He said it's not urgent, but there's no advantage to waiting longer if she isn't going to keep gaining weight. Plus having the Stage 2 done should improve her eating and let her start gaining again - we hope and pray! And of course they don't want her to start losing weight or anything either. He said the surgery will probably be done sometime in the next 2-4 weeks, whenever the surgeons decide. They will call us and let us know by Friday afternoon at the latest what her scheduled surgery date will be.

I'm bummed out that she's not going to get to wait until 6 months to have this done. It would've been so nice to have her get to be healthy, happy, on a routine, and relaxing at home for a little while. It seems like whenever we finally get settled in and she starts to be really happy, then we get sent back to the hospital. But I have to admit that with the way she's been eating I didn't really think there was any chance we were going to get to wait that long. And it could be another month before it happens, which would make her 5 months old and give her an almost 2 month stretch at home! Of course so long as she comes through the surgery well and gets to come home with us again, it will be great to have it done and over with. Plus then we will be done with the every day weighing, pulse ox-ing, and having to keep track of every milliliter she eats and exactly when she eats it. But lets face it, I'd really rather just never have to take her back there ever again and have her be totally healthy without any surgeries at all. So no matter how much I tell myself it's a good thing and point out the pros, really I hate it and the matter of the fact is that it's necessary. It's necessary, it has to happen, so we just have to suck it up and deal with it and hope that someday we can look back on all of this and say "That was terrible, but we are better and stronger people now for it. And look at the wonderful, beautiful, healthy, happy little girl we have to show for it." So I will be counting down the days, hopefully no more than 780, till we can attain that mindset...