EKG and Cardiac Echo

 Kate and I went to her yearly EKG and cardiac echo on wednesday. The EKG is a breeze, in and out in 5 minutes complete with sticky sticker removals.

On the way into the hospital this time Kate and I were talking about how we have driven this road so many times it feels like we could drive with our eyes closed. Well, I could. For some reason the accident came up and I retold her the story of where I parked that night and how I ran across the street and burst into the ER and started banging on the window and yelling that my daughter was here somewhere.  She said they probably thought I was crazy. Haha. I told her that's probably why they gave me a person who didn't leave my side for the first 3 hours.

 But then Kate told me some things about the accident I didn't know. She said she fell asleep at the accident site for part of the time, that she didn't remember talking to me on the phone there at all. She also said that she woke up in the ambulance and was really fighting the paramedics when they tried to start an IV. She hates needles.

She remembers me coming into the ER room she was in, but she thinks she slept for a time because she didn't remember leaving the ambulance. None of these memories seem to her upset her, unless she tells me about the needles. Amazingly brave kiddo.

Back to our tests, we sat in the second waiting room for a while reading and playing games on our phones together. It sobers you up fast seeing all of the other children and parents in there. There's that story or saying about if everyone put all of their challenges on a table, people would still reach down and take their own troubles back. I still think that is true. Don't get me wrong, I'd give anything to take Marfans away from Kate. I still find myself going through those stages of grief, I mostly live in bargaining. Saying in my head and sometimes aloud all of the things I would give up or go through for Kate to not have these health issues. God hasn't taken me up on any of them yet, but I keep trying. 

 Time for the echo exam finally. Tangled was playing, there's always a movie on which is nice as the test took around 40 minutes. I used to try and figure out what I am looking at, but I only see obvious things and I convince myself I see things that likely don't exist. It is pretty cool to see all four chambers and valves seemingly doing their jobs perfectly.

The test took long enough that I thought Kate had dozed off. You can barely see in the last picture, but her eyes were closed. I asked her about it after the test and she said she nearly fell asleep but she thought it might change her heart rate and wasn't sure she should let herself. Smarty pants kid. We left the test absolutely starving so we grabbed a pizza on the way home.