It was a busy day for Julia at Children’s Hospital of Michigan as she went through all of the Pre-operation screening. Bottom line, she’s been cleared for the surgery scheduled for Monday. Let the prayers shift into overdrive… NOW!

That’s the happy ending. The day didn’t start out with the sweetness and light we would have liked, however. Julia had the sniffles for the last few days and it had been the source of some concern for us, since any infection would have delayed the surgery. We understood the doctors’ rationale of wanting to avoid going into major surgery while the patient was fighting an infection, but I don’t think I’d be surprising any of you if I were to say that we’re kind of done.

Couple our natural nervousness with a serious spit-up incident as we were getting Julia ready this morning, some crazy bad traffic on the way to the hospital requiring some creative detouring on my part, and you get some idea of the desperation of our prayers for relief as we were headed down I-75 for the hospital. Needless to say, we were a little keyed up.

So how did God answer those prayers for relief? How did the day turn the corner just a little bit? God’s provision came in the form of the confident smile and sunny disposition of a long time friend who came and got us out of the waiting room to start the intake process. I’ve known Colleen for years and after thinking about it, there is no one on this earth that God could have sent that would have given me more peace. Unbeknownst to us, she had been watching the blog and knew that we were scheduled to come in for testing. She had been watching for us for the past few days; and it was that kind of personal attention and encouragement that Providence… well, provided, right when we needed it the most.

The rest of the day has become pretty routine for us. Jocelyn and I started breathing again when the anesthesiologist listened to her lungs and gave us clearance for the surgery; but Julia sailed through the exams and went through the EKG like an old pro.

There was the not-so-fun stuff as well. The chest x-ray was a new experience in frustration for our little girl, but it didn’t last for very long. The technicians told us that they prefer when the infants cry because it’s as close as they can get to the “take a deep breath and hold it” directions they give the older patients. And I gotta say that Jocelyn was stylin’ in the protective apron they gave her!

The blood draws were obviously painful to watch as well, especially since kids with heart conditions have notoriously slow blood flow. She had to get three pokes to get the volume they needed, and it really pulled at a dad’s heartstrings to see his little girl cry. It’s mostly from having her extremities held in place as they drew the blood – she likes to kick and squirm a lot of the time! In the end, you get through it.

With the medical preparations behind us, we will be spending the weekend preparing ourselves for the “marathon sprint” to the finish line. The surgical staff has told us to plan for a stay of a week to ten days, but there are times that patients are discharged sooner. That “sooner” option is looking pretty good to us, but we know that it’s largely out of our hands. So we’ll be going back to God over the next several days asking for a safe operation and a speedy recovery.