Getty Owl Foundation

Out Walkin’

From Kate:

Sacramento’s weather has sure been funny this year. Days that should be toasty just aren’t and then we had so much rain that you would think we were in Oregon, which by the way is not a dig at Oregon. Mark and I love Oregon for many reason, one of which is we were married there. 🙂

But the weather has been a bit unstable. Now I am trying to figure why I was talking about weather in the first place? Ah yes, walks.

Getty is slowly getting back to her baseline numbers since being sick. Her usual oxygen is around 97-99. She will hit 100, but it won’t stay long. Her usual HR wake is around 120-130’s. Lately Getty’s HR has been a bit higher and so we are carefully watching that. Nothing alarming, just a bit higher since her illness. She is doing great while we are sprinting her off bi-pap. Two to three hours off bi-pap is working for her. Our hope and goal is to get Getty back to being off bi-pap during the day and only using bi-pap for sleeping. But we are going by her rules and she will let us know when she is ready.We are so proud of her recovery.

So lately the weather has been nicer. We have been waiting until later in the evening to take our walks. It is such a joy to be able to resume walks as a family. Since Getty is still a bit unstable, we put her on bi-pap for our walks.

Her medical stroller is simply awesome. It holds all of her necessary items for our journey. In no particular order: Cough Assist, Pulse Oximeter, Bi-pap, Suction machine, and Portable battery. All of which plus the stroller is very heavy to lift up and down a few steps from our front door, so we will be getting a ramp to make that process a little less wearing on our backs. 🙂

It has been a lot of fun watching Getty while we walk. She is very serious and she seems to observe here surroundings very carefully. If we stop the stroller she will do one of two things: Getty will fuss, letting us know to keep moving, or she will give you a non-verbal look of “why the heck did you just stop?” So we have to be very careful when we decide to stop. We have learned in the past that if we stop for a long period of time, she will cry, she will pool secretions, and then she will desat, so needless to say it is a bit more complicated and we choose not to go down that route. 🙂

She seemed to observe all the trees, the cars driving by, animals that walked near her path and then there were times in which she just seemed to be in the moment. So very content being outside and content with life it seemed. How can an almost 16 month old be so soulful, but she is and we are always so in awe of her power.

Our usual loop is around the neighborhood and through the park. It gives Cooper a change to run around with Mark and the park is usually full of people, which is also fun for Getty. Our walks usually last a good hour.

We try to go on walks every night depending on the weather. We have been very lucky that this entire week has been nice enough to go out and not too hot. Last night we walked by some neighbors that we haven’t seen since Getty’s diagnosis. It was nice to see them and to chat. We talked briefly about how Getty was doing and they came down to meet her. Again she was very serious but did give a slight smirk when they showered her sweet compliments. As we were leaving she starting in with all kinds of coos. She was so shy up until that point. It was cute to hear her chatty as we walked away. I am not sure if she wanted to still talk to them or if she was telling us all the things she would have said if not for the shyness or what. But the timing was very cute.

Here are some pictures of one of our walks.

Getty’s loyal steed, Cooper!