A lot has happened over the last week, the most exciting of which is that we really feel like we got our team to do Julia’s surgery. We met last Thursday with Dr. Henry Walters, the Chief of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery at Children’s Hospital of Michigan. We felt utterly taken aback by his humility and concern. He spent time with us, explained her situation and how the defect would be repaired (amazing! and will be explained in a video I’ll be posting soon).

We have our tentative surgery date – January 17th – the countdown of which is on the widget at the upper right of this webpage. We also have our marching orders: body weight. The tissues that the surgeons will be working with are as thin as Kleenex, and the more weight we can put on Julia, the stronger those tissues will be. The goal is a minimum body weight of 4 kilograms – or eight pounds, twelve ounces – but getting her over ten pounds would be better. That will be a tall order considering she’s so petite, but we are going to take a serious run at it.

As Julia’s symptoms progress, the feeding will become more of a challenge. It’s like trying to eat while running wind sprints. So we will be very watchful over the next couple of months.

In the meantime, Julia is eating well and taking visitors! My sisters, Lauren and Lisa, along with my nephew Zach and my Dad came over for dinner on Friday. Our dear friend, Alice, came the following day. We even took advantage of Sunday’s nice weather and took a stroll around the block. Sometimes, it even feels normal!