Back in Cincy...

Hello everyone,

Just wanted to drop a note on how little miss has been doing over the past month or so. We returned back home after her tooth surgery and scopes and she has been doing quite well since. She has reach 27 lbs 5 oz and almost 36 inches in length, she is getting so big! As some of you may know, she has reached her 3rd birthday. I can't believe it has been 3 years already. She had a great time at her party, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme. I will be posting pics later so everyone can see her in her cute Minnie dress. Since she reached three, she lost her services via Birth to Three, who have been there to help her develop her skills and make sure that she stays on track for her age group. We were so sad to lose them, they have been wonderful to us all this time and have been there not only to help her achieve things, but also to us as parents deal with our situation. We love you girls! We have arranged for outpatient physical therapy to come in, along with development and speech therapists through Putnam County. Since she is at the age where she would typically go to preschool, we arranged for them to come in to the home due to her situation. So far, she is adjusting to her new group well. Time will tell.

So, now we are preparing for yet another surgery. We have arrived in Cincy today to prepare for another heart cath. Tomorrow we will be going for her Pre-cath appt, bloodwork, chest xray, and lung scan. Then tomorrow evening will be going in outpatient to the sleep lab for another sleep study. This test will determine where she stands in regards to her apnea episodes while she sleeps and if she has improved since her last, then the pulmonologist will discuss lowering her settings on the vent! We are hoping that she is improving, but it is up to Jenna. We will see. Tomorrow afternoon between her testing, we decided to take her down to the zoo for some fun. She never gets the opportunity to just go out, so daddy and I have decided to take her for some fun. We are looking forward to it, since our vacations always consist of going to the hospital. Tuesday morning will start early, I will be staying with Jenna in the lab tomorrow night (yay, not my idea of fun laying in a sofa chair), in which we should be discharged by around 6am. We are to go over to meet the nurse practitioner around 8:30a to check into the CICU to get ready for her cath. Her cath is set to start around 10:30 depending on the case before her. We are not aware of the length in which it will take at this point, the usual is around 3-4 hours. A few things that we were told are possible to be done (which this can always change) are to look at 4 collateral arteries (found on a previous test) to determine if able to reach and balloon open to improve blood flow to her left side, and also to look for any other narrowings because her pressures are increasing on her right, making them the same as the left. They thought originally this was just from an illness, but it stuck around for a few months, so now they are going to look and see what is going on. We will see.

Sooo..it will be a little busy over the next few days. As long as she does well (no funny business) then we will be coming home on Wednesday. I have already had "the talk" with Miss Jenna about just because you want to see your friends, does not mean that we will be staying longer than usual. I do not want to spend any more time in the hospital unless necessary! Haha. We can only hope for the best, place the situation in the hands of her doctors, nurses and staff and pray to God that things will go fine. He has taken care of her this long, so I feel that he will continue to do so. I tell myself all the time, Be strong, Keep the faith and put the situation in the hands of God, he will take care of my babygirl. He has yet to prove me wrong. :) We are looking forward to seeing "her crew" which we have grown so fond of. We miss everyone and can't wait to catch up!

So, again sorry for not keeping everyone up to date on her, been crazy. She is all over the place and since the weather is starting to improve, we have been taking wagon rides and playing outside on the sidewalks with chalk. I am so looking forward to the summer with her! I will update her status tomorrow at some point. We just ask for everyone to start their prayer chains, Lil Miss is going to need them over the next few days. Thanks to everyone for all the thoughts and prayers, it means so much to us.

Love, Jenny, Justin and Jenna