Heart Surgery...

Today was our Children's appointment for both dental and cardio. We got interesting news at both. At dental, we were told that Scarlette has something called Enamel Hypoplasia on one of her teeth. This is NOT a cavity. This basically means that during tooth formation one of her teeth did not form the enamel that makes a tooth appear nice, white and smooth so it looks pitted with grooves in it and looks like tooth decay. Instead of extraction, the dentist wants to monitor her tooth for the next three months and then fill it in, much like a cavity, when the tooth comes in fully. We are relieved that she does not need to have it pulled and glad that so far it appears that it is just this one tooth.

After this, we went up to cardio. We had seen cardio at our military hospital in February and they had mentioned that surgery was imminent but not for a year or so. Scarlette's pediatric surgeon felt that this call should be made by the cardiac surgeon, rather than a doctor that has nothing to do with the surgery being performed. After we finally got the approval to go to Children's to see the cardiologist there, we finally got an appointment today! Yes, it took four months to get through all the red tape LOL! After speaking with the cardiologist there, who had a copy of her most recent ultrasounds and EKG's, she said there was absolutely no reason for us to wait any longer, and that Scarlette should be getting the surgery sooner rather than later. She did say that her growth has been great and that we can go on our vacation in July as planned. So for now Scarlette's heart surgery has been scheduled for early August. We will be in the hospital for a minimum of a week. They do have to do it open instead of laparoscopic which is scary but I know she is in the Lord's hands! We will need lots of prayer warriors during that time!!!! <3

Love,

the Skrove's

Surgery....this is a vent!

Why does everything with Scarlette always result in surgery. There is never an "easy" fix with her. And usually the solutions are only found after lots and lots of appointments that get us nowhere. A couple weeks ago we saw the ENT docs b/c Scarlette's ear tube fell out. They mentioned that Scarlette's tonsils are abnormally large, and usually that is accompanied by large adenoids. They think that this is the cause of Scarlette's severe congestion/mouth breathing etc and that if it persisted we should consider a tonsillectomy/adenoidectomy. We hoped it wouldn't come to that and mentioned it to the allergist but she also felt it was anatomical rather than allergies. Today, Scarlette's feeding therapist said that it's become so much work for her to breathe that it's inhibiting her eating, making it impossible for her to eat by mouth comfortably. She also recommended the procedure to be done to aid in feeding and speech development. SO now we are adding ANOTHER surgery onto our plate. Ideally they would like to group as many surgeries together as possible so Scarlette won't have to be sedated as often.

They are hoping the first surgery will consist of: her tooth being pulled, her inguinal hernias being repaired and her tonsillectomy/adenoidectomy. Her second surgery will just be cardiac, they don't really want to piggyback on to heart surgery (understandably so!)

I am just tired of ALL her issues having to be surgically fixed, I wish we could just give her medicine and her congestion could go away. I get that her anatomy is slightly different but still, where is my magic wand to wave all of this away!!!

Here's a pic of my stuffy, snorty little bugger!