Our family had a nice few days camping with friends and then packed up camp this morning, came home, cleaned up & headed straight to Sacramento. We had our pre-op appointment today with Dr. Nasirov and his PA-Nichole. Leah & Nolan colored while we talked and discussed the timing of the surgery, the necessity of the surgery, the entry point into the heart for the surgery, how heart caths are rarely used anymore & how fare the techonolgy has come on the echocardiograms....etc..etc.
I wonder how often Dr. Nasirov (Teimoor-as he asks to be called) gets asked these specfic questions from parents of heart kids :)
The date is set for August 16th. The surgery will take place at Sutter Memorial & Dr. Reddy (the surgeon who performed Nolan's 1st surgery) will be involved in his second surgery as well. Nolan should be in the hospital-all things going as planned-for 7 to10 days, with a 6 to 8 week recovery period after surgery. This just means no lifting heavy things (for Nolan of course), pushing/touching of his chest/playing rough, etc.
Our current concern remains the same as to how Nolan will handle all of this. He still insists he is NOT going! We told him that we'd be visiting the surgeon today & he knew we had come to "talk" to the surgeon only. And although he sat on Scott's lap the whole time and colored during the entire conversation, he must have been so engrossed in his art that he wasn't listening :)
In the meantime, before we left for the surgeon's office I had given Nolan a red stone (Jasper) to use as a "worry stone" and help him to pray to God when he was scared or concerned about anything. The "stone" is part of a book I wrote for Nolan (about Nolan) and was illustrated by Leah. I've not given the book to him yet as I "built" it through Costco to be a "hard-cover book" and it should arrive next week. But in the book -Nolan receives a red stone from his parents and as he tours the hospital before surgery, he gets scared & holds his stone and reminds himself that he is "Super Nolan". Along the tour-after holding his stone and building up his courage with his "Super Nolan" statements-pieces of armour suddenly appear on Nolan and in the end-after the tour and as he's going in for surgery-he's in a full suit of God's armour.
"Finally,
be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full
armor of God, so that you can take your stand .... Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day ... comes,
you may be able to stand your ground, .... Stand
firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the
breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted
with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In
addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can
extinguish all the flaming arrows .... Take the helmet of
salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests..." Ephesians 6:10-18
Thanks to all who have and continue to keep our family in your prayers. I will keep you updated on any further developments.
