Good News

This morning we took Anna to see her cardiologist - Dr. Vincent. I have to tell you a little about Dr. Vincent as he is a pretty special doctor. We first met him during one of Abby's early hospital stays. It was the weekend and Eric and I went back to CICU to visit her. As we walked in, there was a man standing next to her bed who was dressed in a Hawaiian shirt, jean shorts and flip flops. He launched into details about Abby and what was going on. I had no idea who he was and as he talked I just continued to stare and wonder who in the world this strange man was. Finally I blurted out "Who are you?" He calmly responded "I'm Dr. Vincent". I wasn't impressed and at the moment was happy to know that Abby had a different cardiologist and this was only the guy on call. I soon came to think very different of Dr. Vincent and was happy to have him in Abby's life. He was on call at the time of one of her most difficult surgeries. It lasted into the night and the details coming out of the OR were not good. In fact she set the record (at Egleston) for surviving the most times being put on and taken off the heart lung machine in one surgery. Of course at the time no-one thought she would survive and it was very tense. She made it out of surgery and went to CICU where no-one know what would happen during the night. Eric and I spent the night in the waiting room and in the morning went in to see Abby who was miraculously still alive. One of the nurses pulled me aside and told me that Dr. Vincent had set up a folding table next to Abby's bed and had slept on it all night. It brings tears to my eyes even now to think of it.

So fast forward 12 years and I contact Dr. Vincent's nurse through a nurse friend that we have stayed in touch with. I tell her about Anna and that we would like Dr. Vincent to be her cardiologist. We get an email back from her that gave us Dr. Vincent's cell phone number and a message from him to call anytime. I called him last week to tell him Eric was picking her up and they would return Saturday evening and could he see her at some point. He tells me he is heading out of town Sunday evening, but that he would see her Sunday morning before he left. I thought of what a wonderful doctor to see us on the weekend when he is heading out. We are blessed.

We took her in this morning and Dr. Vincent did an ECHO of her heart. He commented that her repair (done in the states two years ago - not here in Atlanta) looked "pretty darn good". He said it wasn't perfect and that she may need a valve replacement in the future, but for now her heart looks good. That was wonderful news and an answer to prayer. From some of the reports we had gotten, we were thinking that something might have to be done soon. Dr. Vincent will do a full exam in the next couple of weeks, but we are thrilled at the good news, especially as it allows us to look into her other medical issues. Her scoliosis is much more pronounced than we expected so we will be seeing an orthopedic next.

As far as adjustment things are going well. We have certainly had some bumps - adopting an older child is much different than an infant! But overall she is doing well.