Evening News

Wow, what an exciting way to end the day! As the QA's descendant already mentioned in her earlier blog entry, Paul and I stepped out to watch "Moonrise Kingdom" by Wes Anderson. What a hoot! We can highly recommend it if you like Wes Anderson movies.

When I returned to the ICU (BTW, Paul just moved to the sleeping suites in the hospital which means that he is even closer), I couldn't get to Sophia's room right away because the night nurse didn't answer her phone.

We have had a couple of emergency situations in other rooms as of late, one of which happened today when most of the floor was cut off to parents who had stepped out. The health of the patients is obviously first priority and everyone else just has to wait. So when the page wasn't answered either, I figured that the nurse was pulled into another room to help out with some urgent matter.

But then I caught sight of this little monitor that was inside the ICU just behind the big swing doors and CICU 10 (Sophia's room) was flashing across. SPO2 low. Hmm, could it be that the urgent matter was going on in our very own room?

The front desk lady walked me through the back entrance so that I could get in and sure enough, there were five people gathered around Sophia's bed.

What happened? Here is the recount. Sophia was getting ready for the night and, with the help of the nurse, did her evening routine. When attempting to get into bed, one of the patient cables must have come loose at the pacemaker box and my child fainted. Luckily there were plenty of people around and she came to right away. The nurses believe that she wasn't completely out. Sophia remembers that she had a dream that involved a fancy ad. But she wasn't in it.

While I was trying to get the details of what went down, I noticed that her pacemaker wasn't pacing. She conducted on her own!!! Well, perhaps her AV node needed a bit of an adrenaline push to get back into shape? We shall find out tomorrow what the specialists have to say about that.

It makes me concur with Dr. del Nido's stand to wait the full 10 days post-op before moving forward with a pacemaker. Plus, Sophia just told me after the episode that she doesn't want a pacemaker. One more reason to make this heart of hers have to pick up the pace.

Reading her blog entry makes me smile. She doesn't know what a Cadillac is because her parents drive a Geo Metro. And before that bicycles. The poor lass.

The only other fun thing she did today (and forgot to mention) was to teach the QA how to master the tango. Señorita (her Spanish teacher at school), whose mother is from Argentina, took it upon herself to instruct her 7th-graders in the intricacies of this dance. And my daughter tried to show me how to do it. Paul videotaped it but I will need to get her permission before I can post it.

She also managed to get two balls up today in her Triflo II and to wiggle the third. Progress that I am allowed to post. Although it's almost impossible to capture the moment.

What do you want? Three balls? Watch this!

Are you satisfied now, QA?

Have a good night, everyone.
A.