Plans Change...

1:00pm, August 27th, we took Carla into see Dr. Battle.  Teddy and Matthew stayed with Miss Lori.  Pastor Tim drove us to Dr. Battle's office.  We were still really "clueless" at this point in understanding who exactly Dr. Battle was, and his influence and what it meant to have him "on our team".

A funny thing happened when we first arrived at the office.  They didn't realize that we spoke English, and so they had asked for a translator to be present.  He was excused, as soon as they figured out we or Carla either one were in need of a translator.  ;)

We didn't have to wait very long, to be called back to an exam room.  We met Adrienne, who was Dr. Battle's nurse.  They also came in and did an EKG.  After that, Dr. Battle came in.  Tony and I were so impressed with his attitude.  He was so compassionate.  He not only talked to us, but was sure to always include Carla in his conversation.  I honestly don't remember a lot of our conversation with him, because he gave us the news that Carla was going to have to have open-heart surgery to repair the hole in her heart, and that was so much "bigger" than what we were anticipating that it was all just a little bit overwhelming.  He did take the time to explain to us the reasons... the rim of the hole in Carla's heart was not stable.  Basically it was very thin and flimsy.  The fear being that when the 2 umbrella like devices that would go in at each side of the hole and them clamp together, the rim of the hole would not be strong enough to hold them in place and that that would tear away and then be floating around in her heart... not a good idea!  We asked a little bit about time table... how long would she need to stay in the hospital, how long were we talking about for recovery.  Basically she could be in the hospital about a week... recovery time was normally 6 weeks.   After spending time talking to us, he asked us if Tim was in the waiting area, and if he had our permission to explain the situation to him, and we said yes, please do.

A couple things I remember from his conversation with Tim was that 1) this was going to be a bigger deal, and he wanted Tim to understand the kind of support we were going to be needing.  2) he mentioned that this was the best time of year for Carla to have surgery, because school was just starting and there would not be a lot of children in the hospital having "elective surgeries", so the chance of infection from others was down.   He said, you should thank those visa people who held things up!  We were able to say, it was God who had everything under control and his timing was perfect.

Nurse Adrienne had told us that we would be getting a call the next day from Dr. Gangemi's nurse, to schedule the surgery.  Dr. Gangemi was the pediatric surgeon on Dr. Battle's team.

When we got the call the next day, we had the date.  Carla's open heart surgery would be on Oct. 8.  We had a little over a month to get ready.  During that time she would have a MRI, a pediatric visit, dental exam, and we would meet with the surgeon.

This also meant that the traveling schedule Tony had set up for the fall, was going to have to be altered.  He went to work, trying to change a few meetings around.  One he had to cancel altogether, as it was a conference that was to start the day after her surgery.

I can say that the next month, was full of many unknowns and many blessings.  But, that is all for the next post. :)