Our Mighty Life: Pre-Op

Well hello, hello!

This morning, our little trio found ourselves in the all-too-familiar routine of making our way over to Children's Mpls for Margaret's morning pre-op appointments. We could probably get there with our eyes shut at this point! The drive was a nice opportunity for Bill and I to talk a lot about the upcoming holidays and the "anniversaries" of many big happenings in ours and Margaret's lives. I have been feeling an overwhelming amount of unpredictable emotions lately and this was the first time the two of us really stopped to talk about things lately. We've been really busy and unfortunately our family has been battling terrible colds and sinus infections for the past month. It was reassuring for me to be able to hear that a lot of my feelings are similar to what Bill has been feeling as well. We're anticipating the next few weeks and months to be filled with some serious reflections on the past year. You know we will be hugging each other extra tight during the holidays this year as we often are still in disbelief that we have been blessed with raising this amazing child. We also plan to be extra careful with how much we knowingly expose Margaret to this winter. We are hoping to spend a lot of time at home and embracing the calm time that we hope to experience!!

Back to today...
We started with the usual: check-in at the Heart Clinic where Margaret knew exactly where she was and was pretty quick to bring on the water works. We then did a quick sats check before heading downstairs for a chest x-ray and bloodworm. I am always so grateful for appointments when Bill and I are able to go together. It takes some of the stress out of appointments and watching how silly these two are together makes my heart so full. Margaret also is currently obsessed with other children and it's fun to watch her observe other kids of all ages. She's SO curious! 💜💜💜

The blood-work was definitely the worst part of the morning. Thankfully, we had a great lab tech who was very careful to look at both arms and wrists before determining which vein he knew he could be successful with and he even found a good one to use! Margaret hated every second of it and screamed the whole time but once he was done, she was pretty quick to turnaround and flash some smiles. Pretty impressive recovery time for sure!

We then had the opportunity to meet with the cardiologist to discuss his plan for the Heart Cath. This part of our appointment was pretty quick since we are pretty familiar with what a heart cath is and how our day will likely look. In short, he plans to work/focus on her right Pulmonary Artery and we are all hoping he will be able to balloon it and then place a stent. This will be tricky because of how small we all know her right pulmonary artery is and last time he was not able to place a stent because the artery was not able to be ballooned to a diameter that would make it worth it. We will be anxious to hear the results of the cath, that's for sure! We expect to stay overnight at least one night and plan to remind Margaret that Children's isn't a hotel and she would be much more comfortable recovering at home, especially for Thanksgiving! haha 😉

Anyways, we head back to Children's early Monday morning and will post an update with the results once we know! Thank you for keeping our little warrior and our family in your thoughts and prayers. We are extremely thankful for each and every one of you!

so interested in the other kiddos

exploring in the waiting room

💖Stay tuned, we are working on a plan for celebrating Mighty Margaret's birthday by giving back to the hospital that is like an extension of our home.💖