This morning Namine complained of pain in her back that wrapped around to the middle of her chest. We don’t have nearly the amount of equipment we used to, but we do still have a pulse-oximeter for checking Namine’s blood-oxygen level. Her pulse was normal, her oxygen was good, and she didn’t have a fever.
Namine is no stranger to pain; she experiences it in some form every day, and for the most part does not complain about it. But she knows to tell us about pain she’s unfamiliar with, so she informed us about this. Since this was new, we called the Special Needs line at Children’s Hospital.
Whenever something is going on with Namine, we call the Special Needs department. They’re the go-between for nearly* all the other departments that see Namine: cardiology, ENT, pulmonology, gastroenterology… you get the idea.
When we talked to Special Needs, the doctor said he thought it sounded like a heart issue. (It was about this point when we started freaking out a little.) He called Namine’s cardiologist office, the Herma Heart Institute. They told us it sounded more like a pulled muscle from sports.
While Namine has been pretty active in sports — with basketball and sled hockey on Saturday and Al’s Run last week — she has never in her life (as far as we know) pulled a muscle from wheeling herself. Still, I suppose there’s a first time for everything.
The nurse we spoke to at HHI passed the message on to Namine’s cardiologist, Dr. Block. He then was going to call us back if he felt it was critical. In the meantime, we gave Namine a little Motrin for the pain. All through the afternoon and evening, she never complained about it again.
* I say nearly all the other departments because Namine’s orthopedic surgeon and bone specialist is not in the same network. As a result, getting X-rays between him and the hospital always requires a little extra effort on our part. But considering what happened because of the last time the head orthopedic surgeon operated on Namine, I’d say it’s worth it.
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