Thoughts on Elizabeth’s Surgery Day (Written on June 14)

Today Elizabeth had a heart cath and a stent put in her left pulmonary artery. We drove to Children’s Hospital in D.C., and stopped on the way to drop off papers at the passport office. We are planning to move to Italy this summer, and when we visited the passport office a couple of days ago, we forgot our paperwork, and Elizabeth did not have her driver’s permit or Library of Congress badge, so she could not sign any papers, since she did not have a photo ID. Today she signed her papers and I gave them the birth certificates they needed.

We arrived at Children’s hospital at noon, but because there was another cath before us, and because that cath took longer than expected, we had to wait quite a while before they called us back. When we were called back, they gave Elizabeth two hospital gowns and she changed in the bathroom. She put the first on opening in the back, and the second opening in the front, so she could be as modest as possible. The nurse put in an IV, brought Elizabeth a stuffe animal-- a dog in a train engineer's hat-- and then the doctor and anesthesiologist talked to us. We asked to doctor many questions, and got good answers. He said if the cath was not put in, the narrowing would continue to put strain on her heart and lungs, making everything she does more difficult. He said the stent is a couple of centimeters long and will be opened to a few millimeters across. In “normal” people, one lung gets a bit more blood than the other—about 45/55%. In Elizabeth her perfusion scan showed 70/30. In about 6 months her body will cover the stent in cells, but until then there is a slightly increased chance of blood clots. Also, until then she should have prophylaxis antibiotics before dental work. After that she won’t need it. When we were done with our questions the doctor left and we waited for a couple more hours.

They finally finished with the 9-month-old baby girl and wheeled her out of Cath lab one, past us. She was so tiny, intibated (sp?), with oxygen, and she reminded me of Elizabeth when she was a baby. It was hard not to cry when I saw her.

At a quarter to three they took Elizabeth into cath lab two. I went with her. She climbed onto a very narrow bed and I helped hold up one of her arms, since the bed was too narrow for her to have anyplace to put her arms. One of the nurses brought arm rests for the side of the bed. The doctor gave Elizabeth the first med in her IV to make her start to get sleepy. Elizabeth started laughing like she does when she’s nervous. I asked if she was nervous and she nodded yes. She said she could taste the taste in the back of her throat that she gets when she’s having surgery. The anesthesiologist said it’s a real taste caused by the meds. Then he gave her another milky white med in her IV. She said it burned, then fell asleep. I told her I loved her, kissed her on her forehead (it was very warm), and left the room. It was really hard not to cry.

I returned to the room we’d been in and a nurse said the doctor from the previous cath was talking to the baby’s parents in the waiting room. I could go out to the waiting room when they were done talking.

When the other family was done talking to their doctor the nurse took me to the waiting room. I asked where the cafeteria was, since I had not eaten since that morning. She told me, and said she would be out in a hour to tell me how everything was going with Elizabeth. I went down the hall to the cafeteria and got a small Styrofoam bowl of French onion soup, a salad, a bottle of orange juice and a bag of Fritos. (I was really hungry for Sun Chips, but they didn’t have any.) While I was eating I called Mike and told him they’d taken her in. He was surprised I wasn’t calling to say she was done, because it was already after 3.

Whe I was done eating I went back to the waiting room—a small, purple, semi-circular room with some chairs, a tv (not turned on) and a phone on the wall. I had planned to write or read Mindstorms, but both felt too difficult when I was so worried. So I pulled out the other book I’d brought—Dragon Slippers—and read it. Not much thought required.
Soon the nurse came in to say everything was going well. The doctor was still in the see-how-things-look stage. She would be back in an hour to tell me more.

I read more. In another hour she returned to say things were going well. He had placed a stent and she figured he would not need to do anything else, since she had not heard him mention any other things that needed to be done. She would be back in another hour.

I read more. But before a half hour was up, the nurse returned and said they were done! Everything had gone well. They would be wheeling Elizabeth past the waiting room on her way to recovery soon, but I should stay there so the doctor could talk to me.

I tried to read more, but was watching for Elizabeth and waiting for the doctor. Soon nurses came out of the double doors outside the waiting room wheeling Elizabeth past me on a bed. I only got a glimpse of her before she was gone through another set of double doors.

In a few minutes the doctor came in. He looked happy and sat in the chair next to me as he told me how the cath went. He said there were no problems, that he put a stent in, and showed me pictures he took during the procedure. He pointed out the wires from her open-heart surgert she had at 9 days old, the braided wire of the thermometer the anesthesiologist put in, and the line of the cath. Then he showed me the narrowing in the left pulmonary artery, saying it measured 8 mm diameter, while the non-narrowed places measured 14mm. The next picture was an “after” picture, showing the stent (barely visible) and the same place on the artery, now 14 mm all the way along. He said there was some mild narrowing at another place that had been there for years, had been balloon dilated in 1990 and 19991, and had not gotten worse since then, so he didn’t think it would ever be a problem. There was no problem with her coronary arteries. He gave me a post-cath care pamphlet, the two pictures and a small card stating the make and lot number of her stent, in case we need to know in the future. Then a nurse came to take me to Elizabeth.

She was in a recovery room with three solid walls and one wall made of a glass sliding door. This was as private a room as they could provide. Elizabeth was on a bed, covered in hospital blankets and shivering like crazy. The nurses were working on fixing her IV and asking her to not move her hands—which seemed silly to me, since she was shivering so badly and mostly unconscious. Her eyes were not open and the nurses had to move her head for her. When they fixed the IV one went to get more heated blankets. We covered her and tried to get her warm, although one of the nurses said the shaking was from the anesthesia, not cold. I stroked her forhead and told her I loved her, and that the doctor said everything went well, that he’d put in a stent, and that she should be home tomorrow in time to audition two boys for Harvey. She nodded a couple of times, but mostly shivered, was asleep, or made little gagging sounds.
After about half an hour she started to throw up, and I was glad for her that she hadn’t eaten since 11pm last night. The nurse brought some anti-nausea medicine and put it into Elizabeth’s IV.

Gradually the shivering lessened, and now, finally, she seems to be sleeping peacefully. I did ask for some more heated blankets for her, since it’s quite cold in this room. It’s about 8 pm and she has not really been awake at all yet. The dog the nurse gave her before surgery is on her bed, she has an oxygen mask blowing extra oxygen by her face to keep her saturation levels up, and she has several blankets on her, including one over the top of her head to help keep her warm.
I’ll be spending the night here with her. =)

(And that, I think, is about the fastest 1560 words I’ve ever written!)

Now as I post this, it is Saturday night- the day after her cath. We are home and Elizabeth is doing well. She slept on and off during the night. Her alarms kept sounding because her heart rate was so slow-- in the 40s-- and her oxygen saturation levels were low-- in the 80s. But by morning her sats were 100 (this is the saturation %, so 100 is as good as it gets), and her heart rate was staying above 60. She had an echo, we were told the stent looked good, we had breakfast (Elizabeth wasn't hungry at first, but ate two small pancakes, some yogurt, two slices of bacon, scrambled eggs, a few small pieces of watermellon and a couple of strawberries), met with the cardiologist who put in the stent, and came home. Elizabeth is to spend the week-end resting, and not do any strenous activities (exercising, vacuuming, lifting, etc) for two weeks. She will take an asprin a day for 6 months.

We are thankful for all the prayers ofered on Elizabeth's behalf, and especailly for the blessings of our Heavenly Father.

Book recommendation of the day: Dragon Slippers, by Jessica Day George. A simple peasant girl is told to offer herself to a dragon so the local lord's son can rescue her, marry her, and save her family from poverty. But instead she takes matters into her own hands, befriends the dragons, talks her way out of an arrangement with the lord's son, and eventually saves the entire country from ruin.

Halleluiah! After several problems with usernames, passwords and emails, I am back onto my account. Thank you to my mother-in-law who prompted the renewed effort to get things up and working again! =)

Well... where to begin? First Peter... we attended an award ceremony the other night and Peter was bouncing in his seat. "Mom, just look at all those people I've never even talked to before! Please can I go meet them? Please?" He spent an hour talking to everyone he could, including the officers on stage, the color guard, you name it.

I can tell I'm tired. I've just deleted 3 paragraphs that made no sense. It's after 1am and I'm waiting for Rachel to get home from a date. I'll be ready for some serious sleep when this very nice young man leaves for college next week and Rachel is home at reasonable hours. Did any of that make sense?

Just FYI, I think we're moving to Italy this summer. After Elizabeth has a heart cath and another surgery, I get my ruptured disk taken care of, Mike figures out what the deal is with his thyroid, and we all pack up... we'll head to Vicenza with 6 kids-- well, ok, 5, one will go to college-- 3 cats, one dog and more boks than should be legally owned by any one family. Bibliphiles. Yes. Or maybe Biblioholics Un-anonamyus. I'm looking forward to pizza, gelato, Venice, Swizerland, tile floors, a slower pace and more time as a family. =)

Josh is selling his car- the one he was given, has worked on for about 18 months, and that has been his pride and joy, even though he's not old enough to drive yet. He posted a listing online this afternoon and has had about 10 calls on it already. I suspect it will be gone soon and we will recover over half of our garage space. (An 80-something Grand Marquis takes up quite a bit more space than a Prius.) He plans to use the money to attend a JROTC summer camp, after tithing and savings, of course.

Elizabeth and Peter had a violin recital on Sunday and honestly, it was wonderful. The kids who played were incredible-- some of the top young violinists in the country-- and the music was amazing. I invited friends, but suspect they were envisioning squeeky strings and gritted teeth. They missed a treat. Elizabeth played a movement from a concerto by Fredrich Seitz (sp?) and Peter played May Song. Peter was the only beginer student in the recital. We will miss this violin teacher very much. Hopefully we will find someone in Vicenza to keep their love of music alive.

Bethany has been making all sorts of electronic things lately. She's making creative night lights for all her friends, and little motorized things that zoom about which she calls wizzbots, along with other projects. She says she would like to major in electrical engineering. She has also declared herself a vegetarian. (Mike and I are choosing to ignore this last bit in hopes it will pass.) She has her first solo babysitting job this week-end.

Big Congratulations to my kids who won the Viewers' Choice award for their video! (email me if you don't know what I'm talking about.) The top winning video was made by a science television producer from NY, but being a finalist with such competition is amazing. They did an awesome job! =) Woo Hoo!!!

The book I'm working on is coming along nicely when I have time to work on it. I was doing about 1000 words a day, and still am, every day that I write. Unfortunately that's only about once a week right now. I think I'm at about 46,000 words. Take into account the major plot revision I had to do, removing or rewriting about 20,000 words, and it amounts to a lot of time. The working title is The Other Side of Jacob's Peak. Is it too long? The title, I mean. I don't know, and I guess it really doesn't matter unless the book gets finished, rewritten several times, mailed out several more times, and finally accepted somewhere. So I have some time to think about it. To put it mildly. (Did I mention my play was published in the March? =)

Ok, Rachel is not home yet, but she said to expect her around 2. (Is there something wrong with me that this seems very late?) It's 1:50, so I'm going to get on my pjs and brush my teeth. My eyes are telling me the air is toxic and thay must be shut immediatly to avoid long-term dammage. Ah ha! I hear the garage door opening! Sleep has arrived! And Rachel, too.

Rebecca =)

Oh! Book recommendation! *The Mysterious Benedict Society* by Trenton Lee Stewart. Way fun, page turner. Several of us read it twice through in only a few days, even though it's around 500 pgs long, and we talk about it over and over. It's one of those books that makes you hungry for more, and leaves you wishing it hadn't ended.

Note: spell checker is down. Sorrie for al mistacks.

First a note: Wendy, call me!!!!

Ok, now my real blog. We just got back from Boston late last night. Other than running out of gas on the freeway, it was a trouble-free trip! Well..ok...the man behind the dest at the DoubleTree hotel did not believe I was the person with reservations for some reason. He made me step aside and wait while he called my dad's room (my dad wasn't there) and then had me wait until he could somehow confirm who I was. ??? Eventually my mom and dad and Sadie came back from dinner and we were allowed into the hotel. It was a bit weird. But everything else was just fun, if a bit painful for those of us (me) who are not used to so much walking.

On Friday we did the Freedom Walk through Boston, stopping at the Old North Church and seeing Paul Rever's house. It was interesting. Then, in the afternoon we visited MIT and took their campus tour. It was also interesting, but the best part was after the tour when we went to find the film department but instead found the Lego Lab. This was a large room that looked very much like one of my kids' rooms-- Legos, electronic components, half-finished construction projects in various mediums (including plywood, styrofoam, plastic and wax, among others), pizza boxes and juice bottles, and people working on computers, putting stuff together, etc. In one corner, sitting on a half-burried couch, we found the guys who invented Lego Mindstorms. They showed us the project they're working on now-- a cool combination of electronics and arts-and-craft things like pipe cleaners, pompoms and felt. Also, they showed us a new computer program (called Scratch) they're working on that works like the click-together programing of Mindstorms, but is for Animation. Very cool. Peter climbed onto a model car they were buliding and asked tons of questions, which the guy building it was happy to answer. Then this same guy listened as Josh explained his ideas for capturing light and making an eternal flashlight. He said is sounded possible, and asked if Josh was a student at MIT. =) Bethany explained the solar-panel projects she'd building and he listened, asked questions and spent quite a while doing cool stuff with our kids. It was such an awesome place, with everyone working together on whatever their project was, willing to listen and help, and not think my kids were strange or out in left field. I wish it was all just down the street, instead of 10 hours away.

That night I collapsed, exhaused from all the walking. My legs recovered on about Monday.

On Saturday we drove to Concord and saw Louisa May Allcot's home, then drove to Plymouth to see the rock, the Mayflower and the graves of our ancestors. The rock was... a rock. The ship was pretty, but closed for winter (opens in two weeks), and the graves were mostly unmarked now because their markers were made of wood and didn't last the almost 300 years. But it was cool to be there and think of the people who landed there and to wonder what it looked like when they arrived, and if they are watching us visit their old lands. We had 9 ancestors on the Mayflower. One was Brewster, their religious leader and the only one with a formal education. Another was Billington, the first man hung for murder in the New World. Ahh... our notable ancestors. =)

On Sunday we got to hear the homecoming talk of Mike's cousin, Michael, who was returning from a 2-year mission in Russia. He told of a man who searched and searched for the true church of God and who finally gave up, held a loaded gun to his head and said, "God, I cannot find you here. So I am coming to you there." Then he felt a feeling, like a warm blanket being wrapped around him, and something said, "Wait just a little longer." The next day he said to someone that he could not find the true church of God anywhere. A woman, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, who had not attended meetings in a long time, overheard him and said, "Go to this place. You will find what you are looking for." He did, and was baptized by Michael. Amazing.

On Monday we drove home. Betewn Baltimore and D.C. we ran out of gas. It was my own fault (of course). The light had been on, and I had completely forgotten about it, and kept happliy driving down the road. Until pushing on the gas pedal didn't do anything. Then I realized-- umm... Houston, we have a problem. To make a long story short, a man rescued us. Thank Heaven for good people on Earth. And we made it home safely by about 10:30 pm.

Book Recomendation of the Day: The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare. This is on a higher reading level than her other books, is fiction, and takes place in Palestine during Jesus' lifetime. She does a good job of showing the political situation and tensions of the time and the book is well-researched and well-written. Newbery winner. =)

I used to wonder why, for instance, when Madeline L'Engle began writing about Meg, did Meg's life suddenly change and become extraordinary. Would Honey have moved in next door to Trixie Belden if Ms. Campbell had not decided to write about Trixie? Why was it that as soon as any author began writing an account of some person's life, did that life suddenly have the most amazing things happen. And why didn't anyone ever decide to write about me, so my life could become interesting?

I was also concerned because I wanted to be an author, but every author's life I'd ever heard about was full of excitement and tragedy. J.R.R. Tolkien, for instance, was born in exotic South Africa, and his father died when he was only three. C.S. Lewis' mother died when he was ten, and he was sent to bording school. And Madeline L'Engle was sent to bording school in the French Alps when she was 12. I figured growing up with two healthy parents in St. Paul Minnesota, with no prospect of bording school was going to be a problem. I did not consider being burried under several feet of snow sufficently exciting. I prayed for a tornadoe to suck up our house, or for elephants to escape from the zoo across the street and trample our bushes, or for some mysterious event to send me to bording school, instead of Chelsea Heights Elementry school down the street. Instead, my friend's roof was taken off in a tornadoe, a flamingo from the zoo was found on my neighbor's roof, and when we finally got to move someplace exotic (Morocco), I begged to be left behind to attend Como Park Senior High instead of the Rabat American School (which DID have bording students). My parents were wise enough to drag me, kicking and screaming, to Morocco. Thank heavens.

Besides the lives of authors, I've also been thinking about a petunia plant we had in our yard. I was in my car driving down the street last summer when I saw a weed growing in a crack on the street, and did a double-take. Did that weed have a purple blossom? Weird. I passed it again a few days later and slowed to look at it more closely. It was a petunia growing in a tiny crack in the road. Very weird. A few days later Mike came home from work and said he'd pulled up the little petunia growing in the road and was going to plant it in our hanging pot, which he did. The poor thing just shriveled up and looked dead.

Oh, well, we figured. I had been worth a try.

Then suddenly one morning the petunia was alive. Very alive. It burst into green leaves, purple blossoms, and almost into song. Everyone in the family commented on it, and visitors would exclaim on our amazingly happy and healthy plant hanging outside the back door. The pot it was in had been empty because of my amazing ability to kill anything green, but this plant did not appear to be about to die. Fall came and I was sad that our amazing petunia would die. I thought about bringing it in for the first frost, but forgot to. Several other thigs in the yard died in that frost, but the petunia lived on. We had a couple of deep freezes, and everything in the yard went brown, everything except the little plant that still had purple blossoms and green leaves. I couldn't believe it.

One day Mike said some people in his office had some plants they were taking care of, and asked if he should take the amazingly still alive petunia into them so it could be out of the cold. I agreed, althugh I suspect it might have made it through the winter had we left it where it was. He took it to work, and I haven't seen it since. I think about it though. Bloom where you're planted, even if it's not bording school, exotic South Africa, of with sickly parents. And I guess I must admit, my life has been quite exciting. I should, perhaps, have prayed a little less diligently for excitement. =) Although I wouldn't trade it. I am, after all, a writer.

Harry Potter Seven!!! What will happen? But beyond that, what will the post-Harry Potter world be like? I love living in a world where people debate books, discuss the possible plot twists, dress up as characters, and steal truck loads of books. (Well, ok, maybe not the stealing part-- but isn't it amazing that a *book* can cause such an uproar?)

I imagine this is a bit like serial stories in magazines in ages past-- only on a larger scale. Do you think so?

And what do you think is going to happen? I was convinced Rowling would not let Harry die, but a friend has given me some pretty convincing arguments for his death. Everyone he loves has died- parents, Black and Dumbledore, and Rowling has shown us that in Harry's universe there is life after death. If Harry died he would be reunited with everyone he loves. Also, Rowling has not been squeamish about letting people die-- even if readers desperately want the character to live. I desperately want Harry to live, but I think I'm bracing myself for his possible death.

And then there is Snape. I can only wonder and guess. I am betting there is a memory of Dumbledore's in a bottle or in the pensieve that Harry will enter to learn about Snape's agreement with Dumbledore. But of course, I could be wrong.

It is amazing to me that books exist, and that we read them, and enter with a willing suspension of disbelief, and believe the author when she says such-and-such happened. If Rowling writes Harry dead, Harry will be dead, and no amount of wishing or rewriting by anyone else will change it. Isn't that a bit weird? It's almost odd that we don't band together to rewrite the endings of books we don't like. Or just write our own endings and believe them instead of the author's version. But it's not just the "author's version". If the author says it's so, it is so. The author is god. What an odd mind game we play with ourselves and the rest of the world. I have yet to see anyone standing on street corners hawking their own "Dumbledore Didn't Die" version of book 6. (Yes, there are theories, but they all follow Rowling's words, just hoping she didn't mean what we thought she meant.) What strange creatures we are.

Well, happy, tense, nail-biting waiting for book seven. And then it will be over. And what will we do with ourselves?

Rebecca =)

Obvious book recommendation of the day: re-read the first 6 books before July 21st.

Happy Adoption Day! Today we celebrated Peter and Naomi's seventh year on our family. We offered them several options of activities for the day. Since it is President's Day, Mount Vernon is free. We could have gone to a movie, to Chick-Fil-A, ice skating, etc. But they both voted for the same thing-- lunch at Panera and an afternoon in Borders! =) They are my children, after all.

We've had nasty weather lately. The snowy ice came down, the kids ran out the door, and my plans for school went out the window. We've had a week of snow days, even from homeschooling. But, perhaps they should be called ice days. The precipitation we got was tiny pieces of ice-- about the size of bebes (sp?)-- that froze themselves together, like ice cubes will do if you put them in a bag together. So everything has been covered in a 6 inch solid layer of ice that looks like snow. The kids have been sliding across the yards and streets and having a grand time. Cars have been plowing over sign posts, mailboxes and each other and having a slightly less-than-grand time. And parents across the area have been bandaging knees and elbows from cuts on the ice and occasionally rushing kids into the ER for broken bones and wishing all this would melt so the kids could go back to school. None of my kids have broken anything more than skin, but some of their friends have. And when I was in the doctor's office today picking up a prescription he said he had four broken bones in his office on Thursday. Ouch!

An agent asked to see one of my books. I'm not sure what to do, since she wants it exclusively for a month, and I've just sent the same book off to a couple of publishers and won't hear back from them for over a month. I guess I should have thought of that before I sent out the manuscript and query letters at the same time. I was just thinking no one would ever actually want to see it, so it wouldn't matter. Now I have to figure out what to do.

Well, last night I got 13 hours of sleep (7:30pm to 8:30 am, totally out) and the night before I got 10 hours, and I'm still tired. (How is that possible?) So I'm off to bed. Tomorrow is the first school day in a week and I'd better be up and ready to crack the whip-- or the kids will decide more holidays are in order.

Have a wonderful night!

Book Recommendation for the Day: Same as last time... Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages. Last time I'd just started it. Now that I've finished it I can't stop thinking about it. It's about children living at Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project and gives a good human view of the people building the bomb, some of their thoughts on what they were doing, their excitement at making great scientific leaps, and their conflicting feelings after the tests in the desert near-by. I'm reading it aloud to my kids now, after reading them a few articles from World Book so they would know key players when they encountered them. A very thought provoking book. No heavy physics-- don't worry.

And if any of you have read How I Live Now (don't remember author-- oh yes, Meg Something or Other-- I'm not going to go look it up) I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

Good Night! =)

I've been stumped on my book. I'd gotten to about 27,000 words and realized I had a rather major plot problem. The main character needed to do something, but she was in no position to do it. So I've been rewriting my outline, working on the plot, and rethinking some characters.

Moon Flowers has been at one publisher for several months longer than it should be. So has the trio of picture books about Noah and his good dog, Ruff. I've given up hope of hearing back from either publisher and am going to send them out again. The publisher that has Moon Flowers asked for more time a while back, but at this point I'm thinking they've lost the manuscript, or returned it and the mail man delivered it to the wrong address. I'm feeling like it will be a true miracle if I ever publish anything again.

Elizabeth had seating auditions for orchestra and moved WAY up. =) Good job, Elizabeth! She is an excellent violinist, BTW, and I love listening to her practice.

OK, it's 11pm. I'm off to bed, where I should have been a couple of hours ago.

Book recommendation of the night: The Green Glass Sea. Don't remember who it's by, and it's too late to go check. Good read, though =)