Problems With Pink

First, I want to start off by saying that we have been enjoying the novelty of Hana’s new pink Ikus (the air compressor part of her Berin Heart unit). In pink fashion, a college friend of mine is doing a fundraiser for Hana through Pink Zebra products. The fundraiser ends March 7th. Now, I am TERRIBLE (shy) at promoting things like this but Laurie has put in a lot of really great effort and we really appreciate it! The  products look amazing and I was kind of wishing to get some for myself!

In other pink news, the so far unnamed pink ikus has been a little problematic. It alarms a lot more that Hana has “kinked” the tube from the the pump. I’ve been told that this will happen when you switch out the ikus and it will adjust as time goes on. But the more worrisome problems are the alarm about measurement discrepancy (not to be worried about but mildly annoying) and the discharging battery alarm. The latter is a very serious alarm. The Berlin Heart battery is guaranteed to last 30 minutes (and it takes six hours to charge!) and it gives you a warning when you’ve used the battery for ten minutes and then again at 20 minutes. When you get to 30 minutes it alarms that the battery is discharging. Or, so I’ve been told because we have never taken the risk to wait and find out. So, we’ve been quite surprised to get this alarm after using the battery for only ten minutes. The first time it happened we were outside with the nurse and we had to run in to the nearest outlet to plug in. It’s considered a very urgent situation. Well, we were told (by Berlin Heart) it was okay and we were able to go back to Hana’s room but now it’s happened two more times and we end up running back to the room and plugging in. Today they sent the logs from the computer to the company. Today the cardiologist, one of the leading experts on this device, told me that I should rest assured that even if the pump stopped working Hana’s heart would do fine pumping on her own until they could get her hooked up to the backup Ikus. Besides the emergency hand pump is there too. I’d really like to keep the pink Ikus so I hope they can figure out what is going on.

My sister has been here since Wednesday morning and we’ve had a lot of fun. She leaves Monday night. It was great to have company here during Hana’s IVIG therapy since Hana couldn’t leave her room for 24 hours. I’m sad she has to leave. She did get to witness Hana’s explosion of new signs and words. She has a new favorite each day. My personal favorite was “rainbow” which she usually shortens to “bow”.

Thank you for all the love and support we are so grateful! I never get tired of saying this and we truly feel very lucky every day.

109 days in the hospital, 90 days post-Berlin Heart, 82 days on the transplant list.