Report from our pre-op day

Jensen is sleeping peacefully in his own bed tonight! And by his bed, of course I'm referring to the king size bed that he dominates while Jeremy and I are pushed to the edges...either way, Jensen is home =) Yay! 

Our wild man in the hotel

To do a re-cap of our trip, I will start with pre-op. At 8 am we had to be in Neurology for an EEG. Having someone in your face, scrubbing & measuring your head, first thing in the morning is not pleasant. Jensen absolutely had a meltdown until the poor EEG tech was finished placing all of the wires. He turned 50 shades of purple!! Thankfully he did well for the rest of it since he was able to sit on my lap and watch Thomas. 

He is the best kid to travel with. Seriously. He's amazing!

Next we saw Dr. Licht, his neurologist. He was absolutely amazed at how huge Jensen is and how well he was doing! He read his EEG and it came back totally clean, which means so signs of seizure activity. He did a physical exam and observed Jensen while he was being especially cute feeding his bunny, babbling constantly, and running to chase toys. I could not have been more thrilled with how this appointment went! Dr. Licht is so inviting and friendly that he made an otherwise over-stimulated Jensen very calm and comfortable. Love.That.Man. 

Snuggling with Daddy after his EKG

We discussed the possibility of some type of preventative treatment for Jensen's seizures during the next surgery. We decided that a post-op EEG would be the best way to ensure he isn't having seizures and that if he is, we aren't masking it with any prophylactic medication. He also talked to us about risks for another stroke, which for Jensen, are very low since his stroke was not caused by a blood clot. He also went over all of the "milestones" that Jensen has achieved and told us that he sees no problems with Jensen's slower start in speech. He thinks he will be right on track once he gets started talking. We always feel so relieved to talk with Dr. Licht! He is so smart and knows Jensen's noggin like no one else! 

He was such a good boy for his echo. And what happened to my baby? He looks so grown up!

Next we went to the cardiac intake center for pre-op. This includes EKG, chest x-ray, echo, & blood work. Jensen rocked them all! We were expecting a terrible echo but he literally didn't move the entire time! He laid on mommy and watched Elmo and was a perfect little angel...I'm so proud! Even the blood work went well, he of course cried for a minute when the needle was in, but he did awesome! After that he got to play with one of the therapy pups at CHOP. This dog was amazingly well behaved, even when Jensen tried to sit on her! He had so much fun!

 

 We spoke with Dr. Rychik after all of his testing was finished. He was very pleased with his echo and thought that the cath would be pretty straight forward with minimal interventions. He said he looked blue, his sats were lower, but there was no evidence on any stenosis on the echo. He had a feeling there were some collateral vessels (small vessels that form, causing blood to flow in different directions that what his surgical interventions allow for, which usually cause slightly lower oxygen sats). Overall, he was happy with how Jensen looked, but of course we would have to wait until after the cath to further discuss the Fontan....