Ethan's Surgery Updates

With so many of you praying for Ethan, it was getting more and more difficult to continue emailing everyone, so I decided to post about his surgery. For those of you who aren't quite aware of what is going on you can check out the previous post.

Today was the pre-op. As you can see from the pictures, Stanford is being very cautious about the H1N1 virus. When we arrived at 7:30am we had to check in with security and they then directed us to a nurse's station where they checked Ethan's temperature and gave us masks to wear. Starting last Monday, Stanford has a new policy that no one under the age of 16 is allowed in the hospital unless they are the patient. Unfortunately this means Alanna will not be allowed to visit her brother, which is another reason I am going to post pictures so that she can stay connected.

Here is what happened during the day:

1. Admitting - signed all the paperwork for the surgery
2. Chest X-Ray
3. Echo cardiogram - they did a thorough and complete check of his heart which took over one hour. The staff were so impressed with how great Ethan did that they gave him an extra special gift...a Luke Skywalker figurine!
4. EKG
5. Appointment with the surgical staff - our surgeon, Dr. Reddy, decided to push the surgery back to Monday since Ethan does have a minor cough and runny nose. (more on this later)
6. Lab work - After today, Ethan hates anything remotely connected with blood tests.
7. Donation of blood - I stopped by the Blood Donation Building to give another unit for the surgery.

So all in all the day went well. We are somewhat relieved that the surgery was pushed back to Monday. Cecil has been very sick and she continues to need R & R. Hopefully this gives our whole family time to heal up and get ready for Monday. The staff suggested that we isolate Ethan as much as possible. So we will not be attending church this weekend since we don't want to pick up any new illnesses.

Thanks again for your prayers, phone calls, and emails. It is always a blessing to know that we are so loved. I intend to continue posting updates and pictures all through next week so hopefully everyone can stay in touch with what is happening.