Count Down

We are on the count down now.  We have everything organised for tomorrow morning and barring crisis Kaylee will be in surgery by mid-morning.  Pre-admission is not terribly fun.  Lots of blood tests, poking and prodding.  I am not a huge fan of CT scans.  Beforehand we had to try three times to get a line in then I had to preserve the line for an hour and a half by trying to get her to not wriggle her foot, which was taped up and strapped down but her little toes kept wriggling.  Then we had to hold her down flat while she was put into a beanbag thing and sucked the air out of it to hold her still (lying flat+Kaylee=reflux).  Then they inject a radioactive substance into her vein and wear lead vests while the big scanning machine she is in takes pictures of the radioactive stuff moving through her heart.  All the while knowing that if at any point anything mucks up the pictures she has to have a general anaesthetic (with all the inherent risks) to get the pictures.  And that is just a simple test to prepare for the big stuff!

In every hallway I am seeing someone I know.  Every second nurse who I see is someone I have spent many hours watching over my baby with.  Having my older kids here is a balm for my soul and we are loving being together.  There are playgrounds, fish, sculptures, TVs and computer games to experience.  Having Jon here is like a drink of cold water on a hot day.  The first time I went in to the hospital I came across one of our old room mates.  Dempsey is a few weeks younger than Kaylee and she is from interstate too.  She just had a similar surgery and came through with flying colours - going home less than two weeks post-op.  This morning we went to the zoo as a family and checked out the monkeys and the butterflies.

As always this is a curious mixture of hard, frightening, miserable, beautiful, wonderful and amazing.