2 Appointments and an AED

She just loves breakfast. Can you blame her?

Hi, friends! 😊 I know I had promised an update after Ramona's August appointment, but a bump in our summer plans caused us to rearrange.

St. Louis Zoo!

We took a vacation with my family in St. Louis back in June, and while we were there Ramona was complaining of what seemed to be chest pain. This was new for her, but it only lasted a second, so we decided to keep an eye on her and see if anything else came up, or if she was just cranky/tired/needing attention/etc. Then it happened 3 more times the next day, and she seemed worried each time. They were all brief - she would just say she was sick or hurt and touch her chest, and then lie on my lap for a few minutes. Then she's be good as new and chasing her cousins around the table again. We had taken the transmitter for her loop recorder with us, so we were able to send a transmission to check for arrhythmias, but it didn't show anything. Since this was very out-of-character for her (and happened so many times), we ended up bailing out of vacation a day early to take her to her regular cardiologist just in case.

They did an echo, an ekg, and checked her loop recorder again...and none of them turned up anything. So we don't know what was going on. 🤷 They had turned off the setting on her loop recorder that would watch for high heart rates a while back (because it was over-sensing and made the device useless, and we were more concerned about low heart rates with her anyway), so they turned that back on to give it another try. It is working now, which gives us a wider range of things it will catch, so that's good! Another plus was that Ramona wasn't as nervous about the echo and EKG as usual, because we had just been there a few weeks before. Since everything looked the same, we moved the would-have-been-August appointment back to late September.

After this trip to the doctor happened, little miss smarty-pants thought she could go see the doctor anytime she said she was sick. She would do things like pretend to cough and then say "I think I'm sick. I need see doc-tor aw-bah-wo" (Albaro). Which was adorable, but not helpful. 🙄 Luckily, we only had to wade through that pool of deception for about a week before she moved on.

She looooves to go to the park.

Fast-forward to last week, and we're at her most recent appointment. She was nervous before the echo this time, but a small toy plus cartoons cheered her right up. She adamantly dislikes the "squeezy" (blood pressure cuff), though, and we haven't been able to hack that one yet. But, still, she was a champ. She is so brave and seems so grown up.

Silly echo pic. 

I'm not allowed to throw away the EKG
stickers until she is done with them.

Again, everything from the echo, ekg, and loop recorder was stable. They had mentioned her pressure getting a little higher in May, but there was no concern about it this time. I didn't think to ask whether it had gone down or stayed the same, but either way they were happy with it. And we're happy with that. We're always grateful to hear that things are stable.

Another thing we're grateful for is that Ramona sees her appointments as a positive, mostly fun thing. Other than the Squeezy, she's usually eager to do her jobs and excited to see her doctor. We found some cheap plastic laptops a while back, and she pretended to be the doctor while we waited in the exam room, which made this trip even more fun than usual for her.

Future doctor???

But she only responds to "Dr. Albaro" when
she's in character. 😂

Before we left, Ramona asked the real Dr. Albaro is she could take a picture with her, and she very kindly obliged. We headed out to the van so we could go get some lunch, and as I was putting Ramona in her car seat she yelled "Wait! We forgot to see that guy! That guy has to do my thump thump!" That was code for "We didn't see the electrophysiologist, who we don't usually see, but we did last time so it's obviously routine now." She cracks me up :)

We went to Chick-fil-a for lunch so the girls could play, but Ramona has been a SUPER early riser lately and was so tired by the time we go there that she fell asleep while she was eating. Maybe she shouldn't wake the whole house up at 5:00 AM next time? We tried to carry her to the van after we had eaten and Daisy had played, but as soon as Nathan stepped out the door she popped right up and said, "Hey! We forgot to play in there!" So we went back in.

😴

We're set to go back again on December 30. It sometimes feels kind of wearing to repeat the same cycle over and over with nothing changing. It feels like we're always waiting for something, but we don't know what the something is or when (or if?) it will come. But, we always feel SO incredibly thankful that she continues to live a wonderful, free, joyful life. We're also grateful that we are able to check in every few months to see what's happening on the inside.

In other news, Ramona's doctor thinks it would be best if we had an AED (Automated External Defibrillator) to keep at home just in case. Though she is doing so well, we do, of course, still have a lot of concerns about her, and an AED would give us all a little more peace of mind. Our insurance company is even going to help pay for it, which is awesome! The only problem is that we have to get it from an in-network medical supply place, which we haven't had any luck with yet. I've gone through 40+ in the state of Illinois (holy phone calls, Batman), and none of them even carry AEDs. We were also given some leads on possible grants and/or coupons we can try to apply for if the insurance doesn't pan out.

Prayer Requests:
- For Ramona's heart to be healed
- For her to continue to be so happy, energetic, and full of life
- For us to find a supplier that our insurance will accept for her AED

And here are a few pics of some of the things Ramona has been up to this summer:

She got to see both of her uncles! She's a fan.

So much trampoline time!

Walks to the library.

Visiting her great grandparents!

Posing for a picture. 😂

All funned-out after a day at the zoo.

😍😍😍

Ice cream sandwiches in the pool.

Sister had a birthday!!!

She got to feed a real baby! Her life is complete.

The girls made a lemonade stand
for Mimi's garage sale.

She bought a VERY exciting toy with her
lemonade stand money.

At the carnival with a squishy cousin.

Grandma Sheri took them to see Disney on Ice.
This is Ramona's face when Anna and Elsa
came out.

And then Anna and Elsa started singing. She
kept saying "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh..."

As you can see, her summer has been FULL of her favorite things: toys, playing outside, and time with so many of her favorite people (many of whom aren't pictured). Thank you for continuing to pray for her!

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this:

While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

- Romans 5:8 -