"How do you stop a heart?"

Yesterday, Nana Cermak and I took Evie to her pre-op physical before her big surgery on Thursday. It didn't take very long (about 2 hours), but it was traumatic nonetheless. The nurse practitioner on the surgery team explained the surgery in depth, gave Evie a short physical checkup, and then drew 4 vials of blood (which she really hated).

Nana said it was one of the most traumatic things she had to watch happen to poor little Evie because she screamed so much, the poor little thing. To the nurses' credit though, they only had to prick Evie once and the whole thing was over in about 3 minutes.

The surgery will involve tying up a few more MAPCAs, but the main thing will be attaching a conduit from her heart to her natural (and underdeveloped) pulmonary artery. The medical term for this is a palliative Rastelli procedure with a valved conduit (or homograft).

The surgeon is going to take a heart valve donated from another baby and attach it to Evie's heart, which in turn will be connected to a long, conduit tube that will connect to Evie's pulmonary artery to hopefully increase blood flow to her lungs and also encourage growth of her natural pulmonary artery. The surgeon will have to stop her heart from beating to do this procedure, and Evie will be hooked up to a heart and lung machine.

I had to ask: "So... how do you stop a heart from beating?" Honestly, I don't think I can repeat the answer. I'll leave it up to the docs. After drawing the blood, Evie got two quick x-rays of her chest and we were on our way home. Here are some photos from the day.

In the photo below, Evie spots her shadow: 6 more weeks of winter! Seriously though, Evie tried to make a break for it and left the waiting room, but we roped her back in. And while she was still in the waiting room, she spotted the water bottle of an unsuspecting patient and tried to take off with it. Luckily, he thought Evie was cute! Evie is just as full of mischief as Gavin is.

Evie can't hide from the nurses behind that bench. For some reason she found great comfort in that Kleenex package; it would barely leave her grasp all day. I couldn't even take it out of her hand when it was time to put her coat on to go home later.

We go over the list of Evie's current meds and her immunizations.

Learning how to stop a heart from beating... you know, for future reference.

Evie was remarkably calm while she was examined:

Getting a snack of corn puffs before the dreaded drawing of the blood.

Calming Evie down after the ordeal.

Waiting in radiology with a good book.

More waiting in radiology with Nana Cermak. Evie enjoyed kicking this commercial display. On a side note, I must say: Really? A toy advertisement display in a kids hospital? How can they put enticing toys behind plexiglas and expect them to understand why they can't play with them? Anyway, Nana was a big help throughout the day, especially in helping calm Evie down after the blood letting.

Back at home and in jammies, getting ready to go to bed. Gavin missed his sister! He did not understand why Evie was getting ready to go somewhere in the morning, and he wasn't. Good thing Evie was back home by the time he woke up from his nap!