UPDATE!

I got lab results from Emery's blood work and our cardiologist update today!  All the bloodwork is looking great.  Emery even has antibodies so she doesn't have to start in on a full immunization schedule which is fantastic!  The vaccinations she had in China were effective and we don't have to go near needles for a while which is even better.  And no giardia, anemia, liver problems, or kidney problems.  Everything looks very great which is wonderful news.

Then we talked to our cardiologist, who I really, really like, and Emery's information was presented to a large group of cardiologists and surgeons this morning.  There are a couple of different surgery options and everyone agreed that she is an excellent candidate for heart surgery.  She is in a very stable condition with extremely minimal lung damage so there is no emergency at all.  He wants to have Stanford look at her file since they are the number one in the world for treating her heart specific heart condition and asked if that would be ok.  YES!  So we should know their input in one to two months and decide where we will have the surgery done if Stanford will agree to see her, and then see if our insurance will cover the procedure if it is not in Washington.  But he said we are looking at having a surgery date by December/January and surgery next spring sometime and that she is doing great and to let her just live her life and enjoy the holidays.

So that is our update, totally not what we were expecting when we adopted her, and still some pretty major surgery options that we will have to decide on, mostly whether or not to do one major surgery or to have a series of surgeries to fix component by component and there are pros and cons to both options. In the meantime, we went shooting again today, 4-wheeling, playing in a stream, getting totally muddy, out to a bonfire on the beach with friends last night and our families kids were involved in a major mud fight at the ocean edge and just becoming an Alaskan girl and loving being a part of a family where we all share the same last name and belong to each other.  Life is great right now, I am going to enjoy it since it will fly by too fast.

As a footnote, for those of you who are familiar with Dora the Explorer, yesterday Emery was trying to tell my youngest son 'No' and he wasn't really responding so she held out her hands and yelled 'Swiper no swiping, Swiper no swiping!''.  I couldn't stop laughing.  She was using English, I guess:)