After last week's appointment, our cardiologist said we should start discussing plans for another surgery to place a pacemaker and to hopefully repair her leaking mitral valve. Crossing fingers that it can be repaired because replacing it with a new valve would mean open heart surgeries every 5-10 years for the rest of her life. Ack. When our cardiologist brought it up to the surgeon he said it was way too soon after her last surgery for another one. "I just really don't think we have the luxury of waiting he responded"! It's so hard when the surgery team always seem to be at odds on what to do!
One morning I was praying and praying that there'd be some way to fix her valve. As I did so, I had such a clear mental image of our Savior when He prayed, "Father, please take this from me!" He went through something excruciatingly hard and He didn't want to do it. But then, of course, He submitted and completed the atonement. That moment of clarity gave me so much strength. We can do hard things because He who did the hardest thing is right there with us, pulling us through.
I'm very grateful that Bryce is such an attentive father. A few weeks ago he'd ordered an EKG monitor to use at home. On Wednesday evening Elina vacuumed the living room then had to sit down to rest. I could tell she was struggling so I pulled out the monitor. Her heart rate had dropped to 48 when it's usually at 100. Bryce emailed the cardiologist the EKG reading and he answered back immediately. Apparently Elina had gone into complete heart block for a short time. He wanted us to come up to Primary Children's first thing in the morning to be monitored more closely. So Bryce headed up first thing yesterday morning. By yesterday evening the heart block came back. When it didn't resolve after a few minutes they started prepping for an emergency procedure. Finally after 25 minutes her beat kicked back in so they could put off surgery until morning. What?? I was not prepared for this and was super mad at first. How many surgeries can her poor little body handle? They aren't even going to look at her valve and just put in a pacemaker. So many questions and more what if's.
This whole time I was in Cedar running around like crazy, feeding the missionaries, going on visits, babysitting my sister's kids and trying to figure out a way to rush up to SLC. The planes and shuttles had all left for the day. Luckily my brother, Darren was heading up to SLC in the morning and left early so he could bring me up.
I was nervous to tell Ammon I was going back to the hospital because he's had super separation anxiety since I came home 8 weeks ago. I told him Aunt Annie was going to come watch him again while I would be gone at the hospital and that he could watch a movie with her. He got super excited and said he wouldn't even cry when I go. Well, that was unexpected. Aaron, on the other hand, cried and hugged me about 30 times before I left. As I was leaving I picked up my suit case to see a little "I love you" note taped on. He is such a sweet boy. He also made sure to give me his bottle of concocted deodorant in case the hospital smells bad. lol
Darren and I had the best talk ever. We figured it's been thirteen years since we've had a one-on-one conversation. I almost even forgot why I was coming up. As we pulled into the hospital though reality hit me like a ton of bricks. Whew, breathe. It's surgery #4 time.
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