No news is no news

Maggie had her broncoscopy yesterday. That's the test under anesthesia where they scope her trachea and lungs to see what's gong on. They didn't see anything obvious, which is good, of course, but we don't have an explanation for these episodes she is having. In fact, she had another one this morning. They are scary, especially for her. obviously I didn't want anything to be terribly wrong, but I was hoping for some answers. No news is not necessarily good news. it's just no news.

The day itself was comprised of hurry up and wait. Maggie couldn't eat after midnight and the test was scheduled for 1:00PM. We were supposed to be at the hospital at 11 to get admitted etc. I took her to school for a couple of hours in the morning. I figured having something to do would take her mind off of being hungry.

My plan was to pick her up at 10:30. Steve called from his office and forgot his cell phone at home. That would make it tough to give updates. I told him I would leave early and bring it to him, but I didn't have time to park etc, so he had to come outside and get it. Of course I had to wait for him and didn't leave downtown until 10:25. I had to get to Maggie's school, get her loaded and get and to the hospital in 35 minutes. It wasn't looking good. It was looking even worse when I ran into street closures because of the salesforce.com convention. (The irony of this was not lost on me. Salesforce.com is owned by Marc Benioff and UCSF is now called UCSF Benioff Childrens' hospital after his amazing $100 million donation.)

Despite these setbacks, we arrived in the admitting office at 11:05 and then sat for over an HOUR waiting to get admitted. From there we went to the surgical waiting room - which is a very stressful place. People are either waiting to go into surgery or waiting for information on family members who are already in surgery. Maggie and I picked a quiet corner and zoned out.

Miraculously, they called us on time and up we went. the procedure started about 1:20 and lasted 30 minutes. She was in the recovery room by 2 and they called me to come up shortly after that. Maggie did fine. She woke up and smiled when she heard her music, but she could not keep her oxygen levels up. They were not comfortable releasing us until either they O2 stayed where it should be or the anesthesiologist released us. That's fine, but it took four hours.

Maggie was perfectly fine in every way except her oxygenation.  She is okay today, but it took overnight to get right.Maggie just needed a little boost from the oxygen and she did fine. When took off the oxygen the numbers would drift down again into the low 80's and we'd have to put it back on. It was really a reaction to the anesthesia and having them mess with her lungs.

I suggested we put her in her chair to keep her upright and they agreed. I set up Maggie's talker and she regaled the recovery room staff - and the families of the other kids - with jokes. The nurses were cracking up. One nurse got a pad and paper to write down her favorite joke, which is really funny with the flat computerized voice of the dynavox.

 Why couldn't he pony talk?
It was a little horse.

Particularly funny after a broncoscopy.