Presurgical Testing

Yesterday Gary and I took a day to take Maria to NYC for pre-surgical testing and orientation. We left the house around 6:30am and returned around 8:30pm. We found a parking lot in New Jersey for the car and then took the train and a cab to the hospital. It seems that no matter the transportation route we take, we're looking at 1 to 1 1/2 hours from NJ to her appointments in NYC. The cab driver was very interested in Maria and gave her 2 lollipops, a tootsie roll, and twizzlers. He said he had 4 grandchildren and he liked to make kids smile.

At the appointment we met with an anesthesiologist, a nurse, and a physician's assistant. The whole appointment took 2 1/2 hours. Between each person that we met with we were returned to the waiting room. We were supposed to wait for a little while for Maria to produce a urine sample, unfortunately during this time I think that they forgot about us. I finally told Gary to go up front to look around. As the nurse was calling another lady in, Gary pointed to Maria and suddenly they asked the other lady to sit back down and they took Maria. Maria did very well considering her day consisted of 9 hours in a car, 2 1/2 hours in public transportation, and 2 1/2 hours at the doctors.

Maria's surgery is still on track for next Wednesday. We need to be at the hospital at 6am, so we'll be leaving the hotel at 4:30am that morning. We won't be getting in until 10:30ish the night before, so hopefully we'll hear the alarm that morning.

Thank you all for your prayers. I met with Kirstie's teacher today for a parent teacher conference. She said that Kirstie told her about the surgery and asked her if she wanted to share with the class. Kirstie shared with the class and then the teacher told them that if their family believed in praying to God that this would be a perfect opportunity for them to pray---how encouraging!

We'll do our best to keep everyone posted on the surgery, but the internet connection at our hotel sometimes works and sometimes doesn't, so we'll see.