Today's Scary Story Has A Happy Ending

Today was a day like no other --- the perfect work outfit (and yes, I celebrate those days when I manage to look put together after a school-day morning in this house!), a perfect fall day in Northern VA with Starbucks in hand and a daily to do list that was actually manageable. 

That perfect work outfit never made it to the office.  The caller id said "XYZ School" and so I made a u-turn to pick up Miss Grace from the school nurse.  And then my anxiety started.

"Mom - my heart feels like someone is punching me inside and now the bottom of my spine hurts too".

That combination of complaints scares the hell out of me  --- this is NOT a winning combination.  It brings all sorts of scary memories back and so many lists of "Beware of These Things" that Marfan patients are given.  Back pain + heart/chest pain = NO GOOD.  We already had a doctor appointment scheduled from her complaints earlier but with the addition of the back pain, we headed to the local ER.

And spent the entire day in room 11.

We read books.  Played on the various i-items.  The American Girl catalog was reveiwed for Christmas shopping.

Grace was brave -- through x-rays, two IVs (cause the first needle wasnt big enough for contrast to pass through), and her first CT scan. Not too many tears.

Mom and Dad were pretty brave through it all too -- I think we were both sitting in that hospital room with unspoken fear.  Because if you say words like "enlarged aorta" and "aneursysm" and things like that aloud, they become real.  In our guts, I knew - and I think the hubby knew too -- that this wasn't going to be insanely serious.  But any time you have to take your child to the hospital, its scary.  It just is.  Once we say her heart rate was steady, her blood pressure was consistently good, and the scans were showing normal (NORMAL --- people, when you have Marfan Syndrome, normal is the best word EVER to hear from a doctor, especially the one who reads your aortic CT scan results!!!) --- once all those things came together, we relaxed and came home.

The end result --- skeletel-muscular pain.  Watch her and it will go away.  Only $100 co-pay to hear those words --- and I would have paid a million dollars just to hear that nothing else is wrong with my little girl.

How else do you celebrate and almost-terrifying-ordeal-that-turned-out-okay?  Steak and wine for dinner. :)  Its the small things that make the hard days better.