Thursday was our appointment at Boston Children's Hospital to take another look at Joshua's extra special heart. When you have a complicated heart, formed in a very special way, adapted to by your body for eight years, extra sets of eyes willing to float ideas around is an excellent idea.
Our goal was 6:00 am. Not bad.
We were scheduled to check in at 9:30 am.
Sorry, I couldn't get the camera to work.
Stopped for gas.
Stopped for coffee.
And some breakfast for the traveling companions.
Soon after, we had a bit of a decline that I thought was due to the early hour. Unfortunately, we got to see that breakfast all over again in mostly liquid chunky form. Had to sacrifice Cora's coat in the process. Bad mother complex set in because I did not have another set of clothes handy.
Being the Go-Forth parents that we are, (having waited two months for this appointment) we flew crawled over the Tobin Bridge into Boston carefully scanning the three sets of directions that I brought. 1) Hospital directions 2) Mapquest 3) Google Map = Three variations on the same theme. Boston doesn't give you a whole lot of time to make decisions so in spite of all that preparedness, we landed in Cambridge, then downtown, until I called my personal "On*star" provider who gently guided us around Boston Common, past Fenway, and onto Longwood. We made it at 9:45 am.
No one blinked an eye. They seem pretty flex here at this city inside a city. Our echo tech gleefully put on a movie for Joshua. "Shrek", which would not have been my first choice. However, the tech admitted it was as much for himself as for Joshua. He was very nice and was happy to chat and explain what he was doing during the hour it took for a very detailed echo including 3-D which was way cool.
Joshua enjoyed "Shrek" immensely.
Blue away and red towards. Or is it the other way around?
Joshua and Cora spent hours in the waiting room. Echo, wait. Ekg, wait. Wait some more. Doctor, wait for Mom and Dad. The volunteers were incredible and I was grateful to feel good about leaving my kids basically unattended in the waiting room. Clowns came by.
His smile LIGHTS up a room.
My life would have been incomplete without it.
I am sure of that now.
They told jokes. They sang. And they danced.
Boy, did they dance.
At long last we met with the doctor around 12:30 who acted as though she had all the time in the world for us. Our appointment had been scheduled for 11:00. She missed meetings and probably lunch without a blink of an eye. I've realized I need to take pictures of Joshua with all the doctors we see because he is quite confused when I tell him we are going somewhere. Time for a doctor scrapbook.
He got his own turn to listen.
Fun when you try to take a picture,
and end up taking a picture
of yourself taking a picture.
Right?
Due to our previous bout of familiarizing ourselves with the surroundings (a/k/a LOST) we managed to wind our way out of the city. And I mean winding as in not a straight line. Over the river, through the buildings, and back over the river again.
Things deteriorated in the back seat nicely. In the front seat, we processed and texted, talked, checked e-mails, made phone calls and looked forward to getting some food. Because we sort of forgot about that after the expelling in the back seat earlier.
We landed at my favorite semi-fast food gourmet eatery where I most definitely have a frequent flyer card.
Bonus! This cheeky little girl was waiting for us at the restaurant and we got to bring her home for the weekend.
