Surgery Date Set

Greets to all! Well, we have a surgery date set!!!! Texas Children's got back with us recently and said that June 6th will be Cate's surgery date. It was a joyful and difficult day with just the reality of what our beautiful little girl will have to go through, but at the same time knowing that we have a date and the first leg of this journey will be through is comforting. The nurse that I spoke to said that we will go in on June 5th, we will meet the surgeon, they will do some testing on Cate to make sure that she is up for surgery, and then they will admit her in order to begin preparing her for surgery the next morning. After surgery she will be in intensive care for 2 or 3 days and then moved to the cardio floor for another 4 or 5 days for monitoring. After that she will be discharged and we will stay in Houston for another week, just in case something should happen we are close to the hospital. Our hope is to stay at the Ronald McDonald house which is just right down the road from the Hospital, it is very inexpensive, close to the hospital, they have shuttles to and from the hospital, and hey, who doesn't like McDonald's? So, it looks like we will be in Houston for a couple of weeks at least at the beginning of June. Cate is doing wonderful! She is eating baby food now and loves it, and again, she is a Cantrell, we all love food. She is getting bigger by the day, kinda like her dad, and is probably our most joyful baby yet. She is such a special kid and so joyful, we are blessed to have her as a part of our family. While in the hosptial I will be undating Cate's Blog on a daily basis so please keep up with her progress and keep her and her family in your prayers. I spoke with a Family life specialist at Texas Children's who gave me some really good suggestions on how to talk to our other two rugrats and I feel much more confident in how we will handle them regarding the sisters heart defect and her surgery. I put up some new pictures of her and the other two on our flickr account, www.flickr.com/photos/cantrellkids check them out if you get a chance. Thank you for all the prayers and support, we feel them and appreciate them. She is not out of the woods yet, so please do not stop. We love you all and appreciate you so much!