Life Saving Stuff

It has taken a long time, I know. And even still only a sampling was posted. But Kelly did a good job to finally get some (photos) on Facebook.

Another week has come and gone. All in all it has been quite an eventful week! Let me recall:

(1) Kelly saved a baby's life
(2) Ethan's been chatting up a storm with his classmates and knows about 20 words (does not speak them all, but can point or demonstrate understanding) - most if not all Chinese words
(3) I've secured nearly (cough) $1.3M in contracts for our research company (in the first quarter of 2008) and met with Ray to re-negotiate my employment contract

Blue Lips

Kelly was to round on a baby at the hospital after work one day. Quite routine really. On our way to pick up Ethan from Linda's place, I dropped Kelly off at the hospital, planning as we normally do to then pick her up once I got Ethan. I get a call from Kelly saying she will be a "couple of hours at least" and to just go home with Ethan and pick her up later in the evening.

As it turns out, an 8-hour old baby boy born that day had a congenital heart defect called Something Something (medical terminology). Kelly first noticed the newborn had slightly blue lips. Asked the nurse in charge if she had noticed the baby's lips, the nurse replied "Oh, they are just slightly bruised". Not content with the nurse's reply, and wanting to err on the side of caution, Kelly ordered a few "pulse ox" tests to be done. Basically, leads are connected to a finger or a toe that measures the blood oxygen level of the baby. For a newborn, blood oxygen level is normally at 95% or greater. Baby Boy was at 74% and fell as low as 54%. Some other medical insight that Kelly knows confirmed her initial instincts that this baby may have a heart defect (which is very common apparently).

Baby boy gets rushed to another hospital in TN that has a pediatric cardiology unit with surgeons and other specialists on board. Taken away by a helicopter, baby boy was given oxygen and monitored closely and parents were very worried and sad (understandably).

That evening, baby was stabilized and the attending physician calls Kelly to congratulate her on her insight, intuition and quick action.

Long road still for baby boy, but there is no doubt, remove Kelly from this story this particular evening and baby boy would not survive.

All other events (for us this week) really pale in comparison now, no? Hahaha ..

Well, sufficeth to say Ethan and Dad are progressing, too, thank you. And that's all we'll share for that. For now.