Twelve: Three Weeks
“So tell me about what kind of heart disease he has now?”
The nurse at Cardinal Glennon looked skeptically at me as she walked into the room. Disease? I didn’t know he had a disease. Was she scolding me? I swallowed quickly before answering.
“He has dextrocardia with situs inversus?” I think I phrased it like a question; suddenly I wasn’t so convinced myself.
Turns out, the “scolding” was only concern on the nurse’s part. As she explained later, “We often find heart disease connected with dextrocardia, so we’re definitely going to do an echo on him.”
Yali grinned at her. He had already enjoyed the thirteen stickers attached to his abdomen during an EKG performed by a retired firefighter who handed him a small bottle of bubbles at the end of the procedure. Yali giggled.
“That just makes my day,” the ex-fire fighter grinned. “It really makes my day. What an amazing disposition.”
After the echo – Yali practically fell asleep, he was so relaxed – the tech couldn’t reveal the results, but as he dropped us back in the other room, he paused to say sincerely, “This is a great thing you all are doing.”
What? What were we doing? Had he seen something terrible on that echo screen that we didn’t understand? I wasn’t that hyped up about it, but when they called us back for a second echo, I began to wonder. Finally, everything was explained by a soft-spoken doctor with an Indian accent. He kindly and patiently spoke to us.
“The inside of his heart is normal. The only thing we found was a fistula, a small hole, in the coronary artery. But there is nothing we need to do about that now. We will check it once every year to monitor it. Otherwise, his heart is ready for surgery.”
Whew.
Five Guys Burgers for lunch.
Baskin Robbins: Yali returned with a foil helium balloon. After being gushed over by endless strangers and medical staff all the livelong day, I had an epiphany that probably should have hit me over two months ago. This kid’s going to get whatever he wants in life. I should be worried.
We ended our day with movie night where Carrie-Bri described how a 17 year-old started flirting with her in class. And Rose dowsed us in sacks of snacks while we watched “Storage Wars”.
CARDINALS:
5.5 games up on Pittsburgh: 86 and 48; 28 games remaining.
Magic Number: 24.