Okay, my ears are burning!!!
Okay, my ears are burning!!!
Hi, Jody. Sorry to hear you are having such a difficult time of it. Trust me, we have been there. Do let me reassure you that you are indeed going to be in two of the best hands in the world. Dr. Bove is world renown in the pediatric cardiothoracic world. Kids fly in from all parts of the world for his hands.
Katie has had five heart surgeries (she has very complex anatomy) - all before she was five years old. She is now seven and doing splendidly, thanks to Dr. Bove. We sought out five surgical opinions across the country after Katie's first heart surgery. We were most impressed with Dr. Bove, so we flew up and consulted with him in person. That clinched it for us. He is the most wonderful, compassionate, gifted surgeon. He will not blow smoke up your posterior end, but tells you how it is, yet he remains optimistic and inspires hope and courage when you had none. He told us that, with Katie's heart, we will, unfortunately, never be able to say that "This is our last surgery!"; however, we can reach a point where we can say "We have reached a plateau and we are through with surgeries for now. Let's hope that that 'now' lasts a long, long time"............and that's where we are.
Your fears will be allayed once you meet him. He is calming and will answer any questions that you have. He is very agreeable to letting you tape record the consult, (which we do as Don and I always remember things differently and we can go back and play the tape to see who is right - usually me, haha!) and I highly recommend that as he gives you so much information, you will want to go back and listen to the consult to gleen all the information.
Do turn it up as high as it goes as he is very soft spoken.
Are you going to be at Mott's or are you going to be in the adult card ward at Uof M? While most of his patients are kids, he does have adult chders that he performs surgery on, but I'm not sure where they have surgery.
WEll, I am braindead. If there is anything else I can answer, please let me know. IT may take a couple of days to get back to you as I teach and it's the end of the school year (praise God!) and I have to work graduation tomorrow night, but I promise to check in and get back to you this weekend.
Sorry to hear, too, that you have thrush. Katie had that after her second surgery, so now they give her that preventive mouth swish stuff. Again, I'm braindead, so I can't think of the name of it. If you'd like, I can go back and find the name of it. I'm sure I have it somewhere.
Well, please take care and I'll be checking on you. Tell Dr. Bove that Katie Steffen from TExas says hi! (I usually give him a shout at least once a year, but have failed to do that this year as life here has been crazy, but that is another very long story.) If he looks the least bit foggy (as he operates on so many kids), just mention valve replacement in combination with the fontan, and he will immediately know. (We were only the third one he had done - and he has been operating for some 30+ years - most surgeons we checked with had done none
- yet he pulled it off! He's a true miracle worker!)
Oh, and for the water retention, see if they can't give you a cocktail of aldactone and lasix, giving them intermittently. That usually does the trick for us.
P.S. Mary and Al, thanks for thinking of me. Glad to help when I can. Hugs.
Take care and God bless, Janet
