Visit to Rady's Children's Hospital

It is amazing to me that every time I get so anxious about something, whether it be another test or procedure, anything that has to do with Bailey...everything turns out okay.  Today we went to Rady's Children's Hospital in San Diego.  I have to admit it was hard for me to be back there.  As soon as we started walking towards the hospital I was overcome with so many different emotions.  I was flooded with so many memories of our last visit there, almost nine years ago.  To top it off, we had little Conrad with us, who is starting to look a lot like his brother Bailey.  When we walked the halls I kept thinking about how scared I was after handing over Bailey to get his open-heart surgeries.  We would walk back and forth in those halls waiting for news, trying to keep ourselves occupied, and mostly trying not to go insane.  All those feelings felt so fresh to me.

When we checked in, Bailey got nervous because they put a medical bracelet for him, so I reassured him that we just had to do that because they wanted to make sure they put the right person on the bike.  When we went into the room where they were performing the Exercise Stress Test, it was a little comforting for Bailey to see lockers in the room with names of his favorite football team, the San Diego Chargers.  I could tell he was a little nervous with all the machinery in there, but he remained calm.  I think it was a huge relief that Ed and Conrad were in the room too.

The first thing that Bailey had to do was breathe into a machine.  It looked a little weird because they had to put a clothes pin looking thing on his nose, but he did fine.  Afterwards, they put all the monitors on him, the blood pressure cup, the EKG leads, the head gear that held his breathing monitors.  He was then given the instructions to make sure that the bike remained at 70 and that with each passing minute, it would get harder to maintain.  He did fine, I kept my eye on the EKG and noticed that throughout the whole time, he was not having any irregular heart beats (THANK GOD!), which was something they were concerned about.  

After about 8 minutes on the machine, he was told he could stop.  The doctor told us that he would review the recordings in-depth but from the look of it, everything look good.  He said that usually he sees kids with his condition have difficulty with breathing (asthma, etc.).  Bailey didn't have that.  So once again, Bailey is proving that miracles do happen.  Every day with this child blesses us exponentially.  So with this test being done, I feel so much relief.  We see his Cardiologist in a couple of weeks.  I anticipate that it will be a good visit.

An example of bringing a community together is this recycling drive.  We just found out that a family from the dojo will be donating their recyclables to us.  How very generous!  We also have a secretary of a PTA from another school offering to bring up a possible penny drive at their school.  I am so grateful for the amount of support we are not only getting from our family and friends, but from our community as well.  It is amazing how a child's dedication can bring a community together.