We hope that you are all doing well.  We just want to send a quick update.  Miranda is scheduled for a heart catheterization on Tuesday.  They will be taking a look at her blood flow and seeing if there is any way to improve the flow of her blood so that her new heart can be the most efficient.  Based on her echocardiograms and the scan that they performed last Friday, the doctors anticipate that they may need to either balloon or stent her left pulmonary artery.  It looks like there may be some narrowing there causing the blood to back up and resulting in leakage in her Tricuspid valve.  They will also be taking a biopsy of her heart to see how it is doing.  While they have her under anesthesia, the Ear, Nose, & Throat doctors are also planning on doing an injection to her left vocal cord.  As we mentioned in an earlier update, her left vocal cord is not functioning as it should, so by giving her the injection, it will “plump” the vocal cord up so that her voice will be stronger.

 

So Tuesday is going to be a busy day.  The original plan was that Miranda would check into the hospital at 9:30 Tuesday morning.  After her lab draw Monday morning, we received a call from one of the Transplant Cardiologists and she said that they wanted Miranda to be admitted to the hospital Monday afternoon.  Her creatinine levels were higher than they wanted them to be, so they are going to place her on IV fluids.  They have been monitoring her creatinine levels because she is on several diuretics to help get rid of the remaining fluid in her chest, but they do not want to dry out her kidneys too much.  So she will spend Monday night in the hospital and we are anticipating they will take her in for the procedure around 11:00 am Tuesday.  Then most likely Miranda will need to spend Tuesday night in the hospital also.

 

Tod drove to Seattle on Sunday evening and he will stay there at least until Wednesday afternoon.  Depending on how Miranda’s procedures go and when she is released from the hospital, he may end up staying a little bit longer.  Brittany has a busy week at Pacific University.  This is performance week for her dance classes.  They have performances on Thursday through Saturday.  This means that they have long days on Monday through Wednesday making final adjustments and getting ready.  We know that she and all of the dancers will do great.  We also want to mention that Miranda was able to spend some time last Tuesday (April 11) with one of her friends from high school who happened to be in Seattle.  They had a great afternoon.

 

We want to thank you for your thoughts and prayers as we go through this week.  We know that God will lead us through this.  We will send an update letting everyone know how things go. Have a great week.

 

Lorie, Tod, Brittany, & Miranda