A Perfect Stranger

Sometimes it's nice to know the end before you hear the whole story. Let us just tell you to begin with that Mia is doing really well. Now we can share the entire day with you...be prepared for a long blog! But also, God is so good and we can't praise Him enough!

We arrived at the hospital early and began going through all the preliminary paperwork/checks with the pre-op staff. The doctors came by and everything looked just fine until the anesthesiologist stopped by and was concerned with Mia's blood work. Her potassium was too high on one of her blood draws and he said that he wouldn't put her under if it still was because it can cause complications, especially with her heart condition. So, he said he needed to get an IV in her while she was awake in order to do a blood draw and check her potassium levels. You all know how hard it is to get an IV in her, much less when she is awake...and hungry at this point. But 5 pokes later we got an IV started on her and they were able to draw blood and send it to the lab. It came back that her potassium level was fine and so everything was a go for surgery. So we left her at 8:30 and they told us it would be about 6 hours.

We then went upstairs to the waiting area and were rather teary (we always are when we leave her at the Operating Room door). And this complete stranger stops us and says, "girl are you ok?" And she went on for quite awhile about how everything was going to be ok and how God is in control and it's nice to know that we win the battle in the end. Needless to say, both Brad and I thought she was an angel...kind of a crazy one, but sent to encourage us at that moment.

At around 11, we got a phone call from the OR that they had finally finished putting in IV's and were ready to begin the surgery. They told us it would be about 4 more hours before she was finished. We kept look at the clock as we approached 3pm...and then 3:30...and then 4pm...finally we went and asked them to call down to the OR to see what was happening. They told us she was already upstairs in the PICU (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit) and that we could go and see her in about 20 minutes. That was strange because normally they call you right after she's done with surgery and let you know how things went. A few minutes later her doctor called down and told us to come up so we could see her and he'd talk to us about the surgery.

So we went upstairs, very anxious to see our baby girl and find out how everything went. The first thing he says is that the surgery went very well, but at the end of it they had a little "blip". He was wrapping her head and her heart beat dropped low and she had what he called an arrhythmia. (It's an irregular beating of the heart.) They ended up doing chest compressions on her and zapping her with a defibrillator once. He called it a V-Tach. (Ventricular Tachicardia). Apparently her heart was pumping irregularily and it required assistance. This lasted a total of two minutes and then she was fine. Her cardiologist came and saw her and said her heart looked fine, so they weren't sure what caused the arrhythmia. The only thing they could think of was that her blood was rather acidic and maybe that had something to do with it.

Needless to say, she arrived at the PICU and they are still running tests trying to figure out what happened. They are going to look at her kidneys and make sure everything is ok there. When we finally saw her she was really pale and unresponsive. She was also super cold and they couldn't get a blood pressure reading from her. It took them until about 7pm to get her looking better and it was rather scary for us to watch this all happen. But they ended up giving her more fluid and working on the imbalance of ph in her body. Her blood sugar level was super low-47...so they ended up giving her sugar also.

We came back at 9pm (they always kick us out for the nurse/doctor shift change) and she was looking really well. Her color was back, her temperature was normal, she was making some movement with her hands/feet/mouth. We were so thankful. She is still intubated (she has a breathing tube) and they'll probably take that out tomorrow and then they'll ease her into the food thing after that, but right now they are just keeping her comfortable as she rests after her big day.

How did the surgery go...excellent, the doctor was so please with the result which is awesome. She didn't require very much blood at all, which is almost unheard of considering the type of surgery. Everything went so well. We know that's because of everyone praying!! And even though she had a "blip", God took care of her even then.

Please continue to pray as she'll swell more during the next 48 hours. Pray for quick healing and answers to the arrythmia. Pray also for wisdom and care on the part of the doctors and nurses. And we will continue to give God the praise and glory He deserves!