Day two at Doernbecher Children's Hospital

*** This is the text of an e-mail I sent out to our close family and friends. If you received the e-mail, disregard this post***
*** This information was as of Friday Jan 25th.***


Hello faithful friends and family -

First off THANK YOU for the outpouring of calls, e-mails and visits we have received since sharing the news of Lucy's illness. We are comforted by the knowledge that so many are praying and the well wishes and offers of help are greatly appreciated. We'll let you all know if there is anything we need as we are likely to be in the hospital for another two weeks at least.

Lucy did great at her echo this morning and turned out not to need sedation after all. She was intrigued by the ultrasound pictures and the colors of her moving around through her heart.

The results confirmed the diagnosis of Tetralogy of Fallot. They were able to more clearly see the extent of the condition including a severly narrowed pulmonary artery valve which transports from the heart to the lungs. This has caused the muscle surrounding the valve to become enlarged as it strains to compensate for the narrowing. This all still sounds like a bit of gibberish, but we are slowly learning how to interperet this new language.

Her surgery is scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. They will repair the hole in the wall between the ventracle chambers, remove the excess muscle below the valve, and enlarge the valve itself. There is a possibility they might have to do emergency surgery before then if she has any more severe "tet spells" - she had one this afternoon. Please pray that the medication the are giving her to prevent this works well and that the surgery can continue as planned on Tuesday. We want her to enter surgery as strong as possible and not as an "emergency" situation.

It has been a long and emotional day for us (me especially as Chris was not with me when the spell occured). I'm feeling lots of guilt for not figuring this out sooner. Please pray that God would dispel that feeling so I can be a better support to Lucy.

Sorry I have not returned calls today. My voice is gone and as I said, it has been a long day and I'm still processing the information. We have been moved to the ICU so they can better monitor Lucy's condition while she is on the medication. We have no cell phone reception there, but I will give you all our room phone number tomorrow. You can continue to leave messages on my cell phone or e-mail as I will be checking both throughout the day. I think we'll be ready for some visitors soon, so feel free to call and let us know if you would like to come by and we'll let you know when would be best for us.

We love you all so much and will continue to update you over the next few days. I'm hoping that a good night's sleep with leave us all feeling better tomorrow.

-Jess, Chris, Maryn and Lucy