Doing Well

Tuesday, May 17, 2011 9:49 PM, CDT

I am happy to report that Anastasia is doing remarkably well.  We saw the cardiologist last week and he reassured us that she is on the mend and looks great.  They read the data from her pacemaker with a machine called the interrogator.  Love the name!  It literally tracks every heart beat with the date, time, rate, etc.  We were thrilled to learn that she is only using the pacemaker less than 1% of the time, if at all.  Halleluiah!!!! 

The only real remaining issue at this point is with her feeding.  She is not really overly excited about eating during the day (not sure how she could be my child, haha!).  We are working with a speech therapist and our pediatrician, so hopefully we will have resolution in the near future.  I am sure she would LOVE to get that NG tube out of her nose!

Next up for Anastasia is dealing with her hands.  We see the orthopedic surgeon on May 23rd for a repeat set of x-rays and a recommendation for treatment.  From everything I have read she will be tackling those surgeries when she is about a year old, which will be here before we know it!  Unfortunately there is not a pediatric hand surgeon in Nashville that is vastly experienced with correcting radial club hands, so we are researching other pediatric surgeons across the country.  Nothing is ever simple with our sweet little Annie, is it?!?!

In other news, it is with mixed emotion that I finally return to work at the end of this week.  On one hand I am excited to get a little normalcy back in my life, but on the other I am not ready to leave Anastasia yet.  To some degree I feel like I was robbed of our precious bonding time.  Instead, the last 4 months have been replaced with congestive heart failure, 2 hospital stays, 2 major surgeries, a scary infection, endless doctor appointments, etc.  She is finally healthy and now I have to leave her.  The good news is that my mom will be watching her for the next 6 weeks so I know she will be spoiled, um, I mean in very good hands.

We could never have made it through all of this without the continued love, support, and prayers from our family and friends.  Thank you doesn’t seem to say enough….