Setting a date...

Dr Parra told us that he wanted Torie to have her repair before flu season. Torie was still very small and wearing preemies even though she was 3 1/2 months old.It was a debate-she needed the repair but was she big enough? The plan was to pick a surgeon, set a date and pre op and go for it. So, Paul and I met DR David Bichell.

This man holds all of my hopes and dreams in his hands-he better have strong hands! Actually, Dr Bichell has awesome hands-you should see him draw a picture of a hear! Check out this video- http://www.vanderbiltchildrens.com/

We still have the drawing he did of Torie's heart-it's in her hand dandy notebook with everything else. He went into great detail of what was wrong: 1 vsd-a hole in her heart preventing O2 from going through her body. 2. a muscle that is too thick and is putting extra work on a valve. 3. That same valve is not letting blood flow thru correctly, and must be replaced with a cow valve. A cow valve? I wanted to throw up! Was this really happening?!? Omy, what DID I do for this to happen?? Dr Bichell went on to say the repair would take 4-6 hrs.

On to pre admitting: Kim drove us again. Bless her heart-I could never have a better sister! We got to spend the entire day at Vandy with Carol, Dr Bichell's nurse. She is a very sweet lady! We went through an ekg, echocardiogram and chest xray. On Sunday I got a phone call from Dr Bichell-Torie's echo showed a main artery lying over her vsd-imagine a water hose lying across a hole in the ground. He would not be able to do her repair after all. Torie needed to grow more.

Torie was still small, but slowly starting to grow by mid Dec.She 4 1/2 months old and wearing 0-3 mo clothes...I started baby food-fruits, and cereal. She LOVED the food! As soon as she saw the spoon for the first time, she opened her little mouth and leaned forward, lol. It was too cute. So, we followed up with Dr Parra in Jan 2007 for her next cardiac visit. Torie O2 was 99 and her vitals were ok. Her bp was off a Little so we began our first medicine-4 times a day. We were finally sleeping most of the night, and now we had to start waking her! Well, Dr Parra said that since Torie was doing so well, that we could skip Feb and come back in March. I remember looking at him like he was crazy. He reminded me I could call if needed, but he felt she would be okay....lesson learned later(again!) By this time we did know Torie had Di George Syndrome-a deletion of chromosome 22. Torie actually only has a small deletion-the short arm of chromosome 22. This syndrome affects every person differently. Some have severe symptoms and some people do not have any at all. We went through an immunologist and learned that Torie's immune system is weak, but is within normal limits. THANK GOD! so, our next visit is March.