"We have been nervous when she lies down and gets in bed," Allison said.
Rand listened. "I'm more curious than concerned," she said. "Her lungs actually sound fantastic."
The doctor sent Anderer to get a pulse oximeter to measure the oxygen in Nadia's blood.
They attached the device to Nadia's finger. Her oxygen was definitely low. When Rand laid the toddler down on the examination table, the levels dropped even further.
The hepatologist began going through a quick checklist in her head, trying to make sure she was considering all the possible problems.
It wasn't likely to be hepatopulmonary syndrome, a condition that prevents the blood flowing through the lungs from picking up enough oxygen. That happened in patients with liver disease, but not after transplant.
Still, she would order an echocardiogram. And a chest X-ray.
Nadia needed to be readmitted.
"We will call for a bed," Rand said.
"How long if everything is OK?" Joe asked.
"I'm hoping it will be brief," Rand replied.
"No surgery or anything?" Allison asked.
No, no more surgery.
Rand sent them down to get an X-ray and then off to 8 South.
Joe called the store to say he wouldn't be coming in the next day.
He was getting tired. He just wanted the doctors to find the problem and solve it so his family could go home again.
Allison called her parents in Doylestown and asked if they would keep Adam overnight. She wasn't as sorry as Joe to be staying at the hospital. Nadia was safest at CHOP.
That scary shade of blue
Waiting for the room to be readied on 8 South, Nadia fell asleep in her father's arms. By the time a young doctor, Dan Leung, saw her, her breath was ragged, and she had turned an alarming shade of blue.
At first, Leung said the child needed to be taken immediately to the ER for oxygen. But Nadia's parents convinced him that they would be better off in 8 South.
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