Reading Echos

Today was a nice day. It started out with Dr. T waking Bailey up around 10:30 just to pester each other. He kept sticking one of Bailey's disposable cameras under the blankets - where Bailey had her face burried - to try and take a picture of her face, but he couldn't get the camera to work. He's a fantastic surgeon . . . in our opinion, the best in the world . . . but he's not much with cameras! He congratulated Marissa on her batting last night - and they stared at each other for a minute. It's fascinating (well, more like entertaining) to watch their relationship develop.

Once Bailey woke up, we went down to the book fair and shopped a little and purchased a few. Bailey and Marissa picked out some good books. We'll be busy reading for a while.

We then met with Dr. Farrell, one of the cardiologists here, and she taught Bailey about the heart and how it shows up on echos. It was incredible! All I remember learning about in science class were the 4 chambers. That's not all there is! It's absolutely amazing all the valves, arteries, and all sorts of "passageways" that lead into and out of the heart, the liver, the lungs, and how they all work together to get the blood moving from one place to another. I was really in awe of all the different parts on the model. (And that was a really cool model!) And when Dr. Farrell showed us a part on the model and then looked at an echo to show us the corresponding image, it was really breathtaking. Out of all the echos I've seen of Bailey's, I would see the images and dream up in my head what parts or areas of the heart I think they were . . . and to find out today that I was all wrong! The heart is an incredibly complex piece of our bodies. I am absolutely amazed at the work the cardiologists do in diagnosing all the heart conditions out there, and even more amazed at the surgeons who get in there and repair them all. (Cindy, no wonder you love your work. It's absolutely fascinating!) I never expected this day to open up a whole new concept of the heart for me, but it sure did. Thank you, Dr. Farrell, for taking the time to share with us just a small fraction of your passion.

And Bailey really caught on quickly and identified parts on the echo. She was talking with Dr. Farrell about whether a transplant patient could become a cardiologist or an echo technician (due to all the immunosuppression medications that they take). That was an interesting conversation. Her answer was pretty much, "Why not?" She said that the danger for her would be infectious diseases and that they don't deal with a lot of infectious diseases in cardiology and, even if and when a case would occur, arrangements would just need to be made for that patient to be seen by another cardiologist. I say, "Dream big! and go for it!" It's really neat to see Bailey develop an interest in this area. Having been the patient, she would be an incredible cardiologist.

After that, we pretty much "vegged out" -- working on a little jewelry, reading a little, watched a little TV, doing a little crocheting, and now, hopefully, going to bed since Bailey didn't go to sleep last night until 3:00 this morning.

Good night, everyone!

Angie