Worth a Try

I talked to Peeper's cardiologist today, about the discrepancy between Peeper's weight gain on his scale and on our pediatrician's scale.

He did seem glad to hear that Peep is growing faster than he'd thought but, unfortunately, it doesn't change his opinion about the surgery.

The more important "factors in the equation" are that the hole hasn't closed much and that the pressure differential between the two sides of her heart hasn't increased much, meaning that her lung are still being subjected to higher than ideal pressures.

The longer that continues, the more chances of irreversible damage to her lungs, so we probably need to go ahead and get it closed now, rather than waiting around for it to close on its own.

The surgical team will be reviewing her case on Thursday (he was confused about that before) and we should hear back about their recommendations "by the end of the week."

So, yeah. This is sounding more and more like a done deal.

If the surgery happens, it's likely to be within a month or so, and will be done at a big teaching hospital, about an hour from here.

(Not Children's Hospital of BigCity, where we went for metabolic testing.)

For those of you in-the-know, it's the same hospital where I had my gastric bypass surgery. For those semi-in-the-know, it's the big teaching hospital not far from CapitalCity, where you might expect to get yummy treats on your lunch tray. (wink wink)

(It remains to be seen what comes on a parent's guest tray, but I can guarantee there was nothing of the sort on a gastric bypass post-op lunch tray!)

I asked if we'd be better off to go to Children's Hospital, and Dr. C said that there's no one there that's any better for this surgery than the guy that he's referring us to and that "If my grandchild needed open-heart surgery, this is who I'd want to do it."

So, that's where it all stands.

Of course, we're hoping for some sort of reprieve.

Maybe the surgeon will say that it doesn't look that bad after all, and her lungs are in no danger, and we can watch it for a while longer.

Or maybe he'll ask for one more echo, and we'll be pleasantly surprised with big improvements.

Or maybe. . .

Oh hell, I can't even conjure up a third possible scenario of how we could avoid this.

We're pretty sure it's happening.

So, at this point, I think I'm just ready to find out for sure, and get out of this fucking limbo, sowe can get on with it and get it over with.

The sooner it happens, the sooner it's over, the sooner she's recovered, the sooner we can stop worrying about how it will go, the sooner she's off these fucking medicines that we have to torture her with four times a day, the sooner she can just get on with the business of being a baby, and stop spending so much God damned time being a patient.

But still, yeah, one of those reprieve things I mentioned earlier would sure be a lot better.