I’m not sure I posted about this here, though I did talk about it on Twitter and Facebook. Several weeks ago, my ten-year-old niece had a heart attack. She was rushed to Seattle Children’s, where she was in ICU for a couple weeks on bypass and a respirator. She successfully recovered enough to take her off bypass and the respirator, and as of last week was well enough that she was getting bored at having to stay in the hospital — good news #1!

My brother said a few days ago that she’s going back home to Minnesota this weekend, where she’ll be heading to the Mayo Clinic (thank heaven for good medical care for such drastic conditions! can you see why I’m so up in arms about health insurance? what if she didn’t live near the Mayo Clinic?) to have surgery to fix the original problem that caused all this. From tests, they’re actually not sure what exactly caused it, but they have suspicions about her aortic valve or something. Apparently the CT scans and other tests just didn’t clearly show the problem. Hopefully, the experts at Mayo will be able to pin it down more accurately.

At any rate, thanks all for your thoughts and prayers. There’s still a journey ahead — I’m sure the surgery is serious and she’ll have some definite recovery time from that as well — but they’re finding solutions and we’re all hopeful. Not exactly a fun way for a ten-year-old to spend a summer, but I’m glad they’re finding a solution.