Meeting with the Surgeon, Dr. Campbell

Thursday the 11th of October was Zephyr's 8 month birthday. That was also the day Matt and I were meeting with the surgeon up at Denver Children's Hospital, so I was much more concerned with that meeting that photographing Zeph. Still, I managed to get his monthly photo taken that morning.  Here's the keeper:

Dad babysat the boys for us so that Matt and I could meet with the surgeon that afternoon. I was all kinds of nervous. I'd picked up a Reader's Digest the day before at the library that had an article about "50 Things Your Surgeon Won't Tell You." It made me really nervous about the ulterior motives of the doctors and skeptical that they would have Jarrett's best interests in mind. Also, being at Children's was probably the first time I've been in a hospital for sick kids since back when I had friends dying of cancer as a child. It brought back a lot of memories I hadn't thought about in a long time.

Unfortunately, I didn't feel all my fears dissipate upon meeting and talking with the surgeon. While he let me ask all my questions (and I had pages of them!), at some points it felt like he really wasn't listening to them. Over and over again I got, "This is the way we do things. This is the way we deal with this type of situation." Well, of course he's going to deal with a heart problem using surgery--he's a surgeon. I just want to make sure that surgery is the best option for Jarrett's problem. After talking to the surgeon, I just felt like I had more questions rather than a sense of peace about the whole situation.

Since finding out about Jarrett's need for surgery a week and a half before that, I'd been up every night until at least one researching mitral valve defects, the hospital, the ways of treating the condition, etc. I wanted to be as informed as possible going into that meeting. Once it was over and Matt and I drove back to Mom and Dad's, I found that I was exhausted. I didn't feel safe to drive back the hour to Colorado Springs, so the boys and I stayed overnight in Englewood that night.