Bye C. U. !!

Well, it's official. The ICU at Childrens' Medical Center is no longer our temporary home. We moved on up (but still haven't gotten a piece of any pie) to the 8th floor this afternoon, and Berkeley is still doing great. She is having a little bit of a right lung mucous issue similar to what she had when we were here with pneumonia in January, but it's not nearly as problematic, and the doctors and nurses are still very happy with her status and how she is recovering.

We just met with our cardiologist, and he is very happy with how Berkeley is doing. He said that the goal is to get that right lung cleared out and make sure she's eating well, and we should be going home right on time.

Keep praying for a good recovery, particularly that she coughs out whatever mucous is still hanging around in that upper right lung, and we'll hopefully be home before too long. Thanks to all of our family and friends that have prayed for us, visited, called, brought food, and been all-around awesome. We love you all, and we thank our God upon every remembrance of you.

Hospital Update

Berkeley's recovery is going "by the book," the nurses say. I like hearing that! NO DRAMA NECESSARY!
She is resting peacefully right now, and has made a lot of progress today. She got her breathing tube out (it had been doing all the work for her lungs, but now she's doing it herself), her catheter is gone, as well as a tube monitoring the pressure in her left atrium. Also, she is supposed to get to have a bottle tonight! Based on the way she went after the minty mouth swab I used on her this morning, she'll be ready!
She's only really opened her eyes and looked at us once. That was wonderful...until she realized that being awake hurts! They quickly gave her a sedative and I promised not to bother her for awhile.
Since I couldn't hover over Berkeley, I decided to take a spy nap in the room. I like to act like I'm sleeping, even when I'm not, just to hear what all the nurses and doctors say to each other about her when they think I'm not listening. Nothing scandalous, but they're maybe a little more honest. I did hear one nurse make a funny comment when they were discussing Berkeley needing to urinate. She said, "how are we going to do that? Stick her hand in warm water?" I thought that made all my eaves-napping worth it.

Doing Great!

This is just a quick update from my iPhone at the hospital, so it will be brief and very well may contain some grammatical errors. But here's the great news: Berkeley is out of surgery and is doing great so far. She apparently did very well in the operating room, and the surgeon said that her heart repair went beautifully. Keep praying for her recovery to go well!

Pat-a-verse

 

Brighton has somehow put pat-a-cake on the same level as scripture and prayer. I'm not exactly sure how this happened. A few weeks ago, she was saying pat-a-cake, and getting pretty into it. She was wrapping it up - "and put it in the oven for baby and me!...AMEN!"
This morning, she spontaneously said one of the bible verses she's memorized - Ephesians 6:1. She had learned the verse by way of a little cheer we made up. When we say "Ephesians," we roll our hands and draw the name out, like a rah rah sis boom bah kind of cheerleader routine. I guess it worked - she recited it perfectly! "Children, obey your parents, as believers in the Lord." Then came the ever spiritual pat-a-cake reference. Instead of Ephesians 6:1, she cheered,"Roll it...6:1!"

Animation of the AV Canal surgery

AV Canal Surgery

go to this link if you're wondering what exactly needs to be fixed in Berkeley's heart, and how they're going to fix it.

Change of Plans

 

Sean, Berkeley, and I spent 8 hours at the hospital today doing preop activities...lots of fun stuff, like x-rays, echocardiograms, EKG's, blood draw, and more! Berkeley got her stamp of approval on having surgery tomorrow. Later this evening, we got a call from the nurse telling us that Berkeley had gotten bumped from the schedule on Thursday (some little baby needed surgery more immediately than her). The nurse said that it wouldn't be Friday, either...but I'm praying that something will open up. I was so hoping to have the surgery before Spring break and have that whole week off as she recovers.
Right now we're just waiting for a call to let us know when the surgery will be. I figure it doesn't hurt to ask God to get us in sooner than later!

Surgery Calendar

Okay, here we go. This calendar is intended for family and friends to see who is coming to visit Berkeley after surgery so that people making longer trips can plan accordingly and not all show up at the same time on the same day. We'd love to see everyone all at once, but Berkeley probably won't be able to handle too many people at one time for a while. I'm sure local family and friends will be around a lot as well, but this should help those making the drive to see what's going on. Please, please, please make use of the calendar if you are planning to come see Berkeley. This will help us a lot in knowing whom to expect after surgery time, as we will probably be tough to catch on the phone for several days. I've gone ahead and marked off her surgery time on March 12th, and we can expect her to be in ICU for about three days after that, so that's marked as well. Anyway, go ahead and sign up for times that you plan to be around, and yes it's okay if you come at the same time as someone else, but if there's already several people on the same day, please try to find a day with a little less traffic. Oh, and if you have trouble using the calendar, just post in the comments when you'd like to come by, and we'll try to add you in ourselves. Thanks!

EDIT: Apparently, the calendar I embedded for you is difficult to interact with for posting new appointments. You can go to the bigger version of the calendar and make your appointments and see them updated here on the blog version. The link for the full calendar is here:

Berkeley's Surgery Calendar