Hard News to Hear

When we adopted Emma, we adopted her knowing that she had a small heart defect. We got her in to see the cardiologist almost as soon as we got home, and at the time they confirmed the measurements and information we'd received from China. We were told that in 3 to 4 years we would need to take Emma to Portland and have a minor catheterization surgery to repair the hole in her heart and make her 'normal.'

Today I had a follow up appointment with OHSU, something routine. I didn't think anything of it, and I took Em alone. It was a different doctor today, who listened briefly to her heart and said everything was fine. I mentioned to him that we had noticed her tiring sooner lately, and he dismissed me and said that that symptom would have nothing to do with what was wrong with her. I explained that the last cardiologist had said in fact that it would be a symptom. To appease me I think he finally agreed to take another look.

Now, instead of 3 years, we have 4 months. It seems little Em's heart is working double over time and enlarging. They want to push her surgery up quite a bit and possibly operate on her this fall. He had a very different approach when he came back in to see us and give me the news.

Please pray for our little girl. The other thing he said was that it could very well be an open heart surgery and not the cardiac cathertization that we had been hoping for. He said until we had more complete diagnostics run in Portland we wouldn't know a thing.

It is one thing to know your baby is going to have a problem years from now, and quite another to find out that the problem is at hand and that the solutions are going to be more invasive and scary then you expected.

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