Silje Arlene Loftus-Skjervold

An update on things happening in the new world of Silje Arlene (formerly known as Pickles): We, Jeni, Silje and I are currently in Indianapolis at a place called St. Vincent's Hospital. Silje was transported here from St. Elizabeth in Lafyette by a team of medical transporters from St. V yesterday afternoon. Earlier in the day, a very astute doctor thought that things didn't seem quite right--not terrible, but just not right. And she could hear a murmur in Silje's heart. She went ahead and ordered an echo cardiogram. Normally, they would do the echo cardiogram themselves (St. E, that is) and send the results electronically to St. V for the pediatric cardiologist to take a look at. The turn-around would be a couple of hours. However, a pediatric cardiologist from St. V happened to be in the building, and he came and did the examination himself.

Silje has an interrupted aortic arch. Undiscovered, she would have lasted a couple more days, gotten really sick and then needed emergency surgery to try to repair it. Discovered when it was, she still needs surgery (and this is very dangerous surgery), but at least they can schedule it, get her to a nice stable state and plan out everything carefully.

Today is Friday. Her surgery is currently scheduled for Monday, probably early in the day. The doctor who did the initial echo cardiogram told us that (1). the problem Silje has is completely repairable and (2). there is an 80% rate of success for a positive outcome. Needless to say, the remaining 20% terrifies us.

There is much more to say and there are many more questions. And probably there will be further posts as we sit and wait these next days and weeks. St. Vincent's has been amazing in finding us a place to stay right near by. They have reduced the number of things we need to worry about enormously.

Silje is doing very well, considering. She has tubes and wires and all manner of gadgets and devices hooked up to her measuring and administering all sorts of things. A hospital shot is not always the most cheery, but you can see in this photo, in spite of everything, she looks rather comfy lying there. She reacts to Jeni's and my voices and later today we will be able to touch her skin-to-skin--and that will be nice.