Ava Jane's Heart Surgery

Yesterday was quite the day, Ava Jane was still wheezy and rattley so I called the doctors office to have her seen again. We did a chest x-ray and that was clear, we did an RSV test and that was negative, we did an updraft and that didn't change anything in her breathing, so because she was "retracting" and still had wheezing sounds Dr. Byrum said to head to the ER at Children's Hospital.

We arrived here about 4pm and things really got going...when we checked in at Triage and were headed back to an ER room her pulse ox registered at 64 (anything in the 90's is good and 100% is perfect), needless to say we had tons of people in the room trying to get her hooked up to the oxygen canula, and get an IV flowing. We told the story of what's been going on with her over the last several days to at least 5-6 different people, and I was confused the whole time on why we never saw a respitory therapist that they said was coming...because I still thought all her problems were respitory related, that made sense to me since all 3 of the boys have spent their fare share of time in the ER doing albuterol updraft treatments.

Well, each doctor and nurse that listened to her said they heard the heart murmur, and that seemed to be the utmost priority to them...I didn't realize how bad the situation was. The guy came in and did an EKG (where they hooked her up to 12 leads), that was fast and easy...then the respitory therapist came at the same time as the Doctor who was going to do the Echocardiogram. Instead of having the respitory guy come in they had us go get another chest x-ray, which looks terrible by the way. They sat Ava Jane on this thing that looks like a bicycle seat that has this clear plastic that wraps all the way around her little body while her hands are stretched up to the ceiling...truly it looked like a torture device and she did not like it! After that we headed back to the ER room where they did the Echo. I thought, that it would be quick and easy too...but I was sorely mistaken!! I had NO clue!

So the Doctor started the Echo and she said it'd probably be about 45 minutes, I thought "ok, no biggie", it looks like an ultrasound machine, I thought it'd be quick and easy like the EKG, it WAS.NOT. I started watching the clock and it was 7:25pm, when it got to 8:30 I leaned over to Adam and said, "this is taking forever" (I was beginning to feel that something had to be wrong)....about that same time the Doctor said, "I am about half way thru...." ARE.YOU.KIDDING me? Anyway, to make a long story short, Dr. Abraham finally said, "well she does have a problem, and she is going to need surgery." Wow, I WAS.NOT.PREPARED for that! Turns out, our sweet baby girl has a congenital heart defect called Coarctation of the Aorta...I'm still learning exactly what that is...but basically its a narrowing of the aorta. The aorta is what supplies blood to the rest of the body, and since her's is narrowed so much it's caused the left ventrical to thicken because its having to work overtime. Here's a picture of what we're dealing with...


There are so many details but right now, for one, we found out that she is RSV positive and she's still running fever. They'd planned to do the surgery this morning but because of these complications we will wait a few days to see if her little body can get better before we complicate things with heart surgery. We're still waiting to hear from the surgeons. On this Thanksgiving morning, we are so thankful for a precious little girl and for a God who is big enough to carry the fears we have. If you'd join us in praying for her we'd be ever so grateful! I will post again when we know more!


Adam and I did get to have a Thanksgiving meal and had the chance to pray for our sweet Ava Jane. Wish we could've been with family to celebrate the holiday, but we're enjoying getting to cuddle with Ava Jane without any interruptions, that is except for the blood pressure checks, echocardiograms,