children’s hospital

last friday, nolan had an appointment with a pediatric cardiologist to further investigate his heart.  even though the results from his ekg were normal (and nolan later confiding in me that his heart felt weird when ray scared him), our pediatrician is convinced that kids don’t make up symptoms about their heart feeling funny so she thought we should get it checked out just to be safe. 

so- off we went to dr. stamm.  who i’m pretty sure is the oldest living cardiologist around.  i’m not even joking when i say he is in his eighties.  and i’m also not joking when i say he still bikes to work every single day.  he’s a phenomenon at children’s hospital. 

tangent:  i love children’s hospital.  it’s like a hospital with disneyland details.  they’ve thought of everything:  they have free valet parking, and fun themed strollers and wagonsto pull your kiddos around in, somebody personally greets you at the entrance and directs you to a check-in desk to get a personalized badge and to be given more instruction as to where to go, they offer sibling classes that have different activities everyday  [friday was “bandaid art”-  so cute], the kids also get to choose a stuffed animal when they leave, and they have great waiting rooms.  my boys didn’t want to leave.  in fact, they begged to go back in the waiting room after we were done with our appointment.  it’s that great.

 

the only thing i don’t like about children’s is seeing how common it is to have a very sick child.  i always feel guilty when i go because it’s usually for some very random, isolated appointment that has always checked out OK.  there are so many families who practically live at children’s because they have kids that are terminally ill or who have medical appointments frequently.  it is always heavy on my heart to watch other families who have children with significant medical problems.  i am humbled every visit.

back to our appointment:    dr. stamm first diagnosed nolan with a stihl’s heart murmur, which is essentially nothing but a “musical heart.”  ray has the same thing.  and he couldn’t hear any other abnormalities so he sent us home with a little heart monitor that i can place on nolan’s heart during an “epsiode” and it will record the heart’s readings.  then i just call an 800-number and upload the readings over the phone.  technology never ceases to amaze me.  so far- no “heart” episodes to record.

the funniest thing happened on our way to the hospital. 

nolan’s appointment was in the morning so i didn’t take him to school.  i told him i would be taking him to a special doctor’s appointment- that wouldn’t be at our normal pediatrician’s office.  the drive to children’s hospital in seattle is relatively long, about 25 minutes.  so nolan was starting to wonder where i was taking him after a while.  i reassured him that i knew where i was going and that it was a little far, but we had to go somewhere special to have a very special doctor listen to his heart.  this seemed to appease him and the questions about where exactly we were going and why was it taking so long momentarily stopped. 

it wasn’t until i announced that we were here, and made the final right turn into the parking structure that nolan asked his final question, which was prompted by this sign:

in making the hospital fun, the different areas of the hospital are identified with different animals.  for instance, we were directed into the “whale entrance”.  i’ve driven here at least a dozen times before, but the thought has never occurred to me how strange that sign must have been to someone that took it literally. 

like nolan did. 

with a very concerned voice, nolan exclaimed, “mom!  where are you taking me?”