Change of Plans

What a week!  I took Isabel to her pre-op appointment at Children's Hospital on Tuesday.  Not an easy trip for us.  While there, admitting said they may need her to see the cardiologist again with an updated letter.  Izzy has a very minor heart issue.  It's so minor that no doctor knew about it until we had to take her to a cardiologist before her last surgery and he did an ultrasound of her heart.  The tests he did prior to the ultrasound didn't show any problems either.  Anyway, I had taken her to the cardiologist prior to her last surgery in April.  He cleared her for surgery and said he would just like a follow up in 6 months.  That would have been September/October. That's when we were dealing with my pregnancy nausea and exhaustion, illness after illness with our kids, Jim going to Africa and breaking his arm and Izzy's rod poking out of her elbow!!  Yeah, a no-biggie, follow-up appt with the cardiologist just wasn't happening! The hospital never told me that they needed her to see the cardiologist again. Grrrr!

Well, I made a stink and the hospital said they would accept an updated letter from the cardiologist without her seeing him first and the cardiologist was ok with that too.  However, her surgery was supposed to take place on Thursday and we settled on the letter Wednesday morning.  Cutting it close, but thought it would work.  By 2pm on Wednesday, the hospital still didn't have the letter.  The hospital wanted the letter written and formatted a certain way.  The cardiologist tried 3 times.  Not acceptable.  I left messages for one person at the hospital, spoke with another person and waited, but they were leaving at 4pm. Grrr, again! During the wait, Jim shared with me (again) that he felt there was a greater purpose in this delay.  He tried to tell me before but I was just so set on the surgery happening on Thursday.  We had arranged friends and a babysitter to help watch the kids and I was just mentally prepared for it. 

However, after Jim and spoke, I relinquished.  If for some strange reason her heart had gotten worse and we didn't take her to the cardiologist first to find that out, we would have felt awful.  It could have had terrible results for Isabel.  So, I called the hospital back to reschedule her surgery and called the cardiologist to make an appt.  She'll see the cardiologist in December and have her surgery in February.  That was the soonest I could get a surgery date.

I would have liked to have had this last surgery behind her, but I guess delaying is best for the family too.  Jim is still in terrible pain from his broken arm and can't do much.  Isabel would have come out of surgery with double casts from fingertips to armpits for 4 - 6 weeks.  We have the typical busy schedule in December with the holidays.  And on Friday, she came down with a terrible cold that must have been brewing.

So, this sweet girl didn't have the hard week we were prepared for. : )