Surgery Rescheduleld

Sorry for the couple of days hiatus on posting to the blog. Isabelle wouldn't let me out of her sight without screaming so hard her oxygen saturation levels would drop. Going to the computer room at the hospital to update was out of the question!

Phil traveled back home on Wednesday p.m. Isabelle stayed in PCICU until Thursday and then was moved to the step-down unit.

As an aside...MUSC is specially equipped to handle pediatric cardiac patients. In addition to having an PCICU that has 12 beds and is dedicated solely to pediatric heart patients, they also have a step-down floor which is dedicated to peds cardiac patients. This floor has a telemetry system so each child's EKG readings, oxygen levels, etc. feed straight into the nurses' station. This attention to medical detail is the reason we're at MUSC.

On Thursday we received word that Isabelle's heart surgeon was scheduled for Monday. However, on Friday, Dr. Bradley had an emergency heart surgery which bumped all his other surgeries back. Many heart surgeries take all day and the others take 3-4 hours, so Dr. Bradley can only operate on one or two children a day. While we were in PCICU he had 2 unexpected emergency surgeries. You can image what this does to his surgical schedule.

We are now scheduled for a Thursday surgical date with Wednesday all day pre-op labs. They gave us the choice of staying in the hospital until the surgery or returning home for a few days. Isabelle is stable on 3 liters of oxygen, so we opted to travel home.

Phil and the girls (Michaela, AnnaGrace and Sarah Mei) were troopers. They drove to Charleston (4 hours) Friday afternoon to pick us up. We intended to stay in Charleston overnight and then make the trek back. When we called the hotels they were ALL booked. You may have read about the cruise ship with the stomach virus?? The cruise line booked 500 hotel rooms for all their sick passengers. Needless to say, we didn't want to stay in Charleston to get exposed to that bug. Instead we drove 2 hours to Orangeburg where we spent the night.

After some careful deliberation we decided to go on a "field trip" to the Columbia zoo. We held Isabelle the whole time (oxygen tank in-tow) and spent 2 hours seeing our favorite animals. It's a balancing act when you have a critical child...keeping them safe and healthy while keeping your other children sane:) The girls REALLY enjoyed the 1st diversion since Isabelle has been on U.S. soil.



Life is a little complicated for us right now. I have a history of seizures but have been seizure-free on meds for over 9 years. However, while in China, I had a seizure. We were in Isabelle's province where the altitude was about 7,000 feet above sea level. That, combined with the fatigue that comes with international travel, was more than my system could handle. It was quite scary. I'm deathly allergic to the 2 most common meds to treat seizures. Those meds would have been the 1st line of treatment had I been taken to a Chinese hospital. But in God's providence, their was a wonderful American Dr. in the province where Isabelle lived. He was on "back-up" for me if I had any further issues which praise God I didn't. All of this is a long story to say I can't drive right now until my system gets back on an even keel. This has added an extra component to all these trips to Charleston since Phil has to drive me everywhere.

To add to all the other challenges, Sarah Mei now has a stomach bug which we're praying we can keep isolated to just her.

Despite all the obstacles, I can truly say we're not discouraged. At times we're physically exhausted but the Lord is sustaining us emotionally. We stand in awe that we serve such an awesome, awe-inspiring, personal God.

"It is good to praise the Lord and make music to your name, O Most High, to proclaim Your love in the morning and your faithfulness at night." Ps. 92:1,2

Although I couldn't get out to the computer, I had Phil's Blackberry and I could read every message you left on the blog. The Lord is using the Body of Christ to encourage us and uphold us during this time in our lives. Your prayers and words of encouragement mean SO much to us. We are blessed by all you!!


(We enjoyed visiting Aslan. We are big Narnia fans and this lion reminded us of Aslan!)