Needs To Better Monitor Their Child

(My youngest sister has had to have multiple surgeries: at least ten by the time she is fourteen. When she is around six years old, she is staying in the hospital for several nights for a major operation. My parents stay with her while our grandparents take care of the other siblings. My mom is on the foldout couch next to the hospital bed, asleep, when at 3:00 in the morning, she hears an alarm go off.)

Oxygen Monitor: “Beep beep beep!”

Heart Monitor: “Beep beep beep!”

(Mom and Dad both woke up in seconds as several panicked nurses come running in to see why my little sister’s heart and oxygen monitors were going crazy. My six-year-old sister was sitting up in bed, holding her breath and then breathing rapidly, just to watch the monitors freak out, and she was giggling hysterically. It was not one of my parents’ favorite wake-up calls, that was for sure.)