Behind the armoire used for food storage in the dining room is a vent that we have yet to finish and yet to put a register cover on. Did you ever think about what may be down this hole??
Here's a clue...
Can't figure it out?? Here's a closer view --
Still can't figure it out? Well here's a funny story...
We were on our way out of town for a New Year's up in the mountain when it occurred to me that I had not seen my pager for work since the night before. I knew exactly where it was when I last saw it and when I asked Mike he said the same thing - on the table in the dining room. We didn't have enough time to look really hard for it but I look in all the places I could think of and I still couldn't find it. So I did all I could and decided I would send a text to people at work so they knew to get me on my cell phone if they needed me and I would get back to looking for the pager when I got home.
But before I could even let them know where to find me, I got a text saying "Going on ECMO". For those of you that don't know, I am training to be an ECMO Specialist as part of a new program we are starting in the PICU. I will look for a good link soon but a quick overview is that ECMO (extra corporeal membrane oxygenation) is used for patients as a heart-lung bypass to give the heart and/or lungs sufficient time to heal when they are too sick to function on their own. There are 5 of us going through training right now and up until this point, we have only had theory and practice circuits to train on. So the fact that there was an actual patient was very exciting. That said, there was a case going on and I was up in the mountains trying to enjoy my new year's weekend. I spent well over a day trying to figure out if I would need to come back early and if so, how I would make it back since we carpooled with a friend to get to the mountains... and let's not forget that my pager (which received a page at the same time as I received my text message) was still MIA.
So, I assumed when I got back to Denver (after deciding to not come back because the 24 hours wouldn't gain me much and I'd get just as much experience later in the weekend and week since the patient would probably be on pump for a few days at the least and there would be many people vying for time at the pump) I would hear my pager periodically beeping to tell me I missed a page. So we get back to Denver on Saturday and I proceed to tear the house apart looking for it. I went so far as to go through the trash and the recycling just in case it had gotten thrown away... to no avail. I had made plans to work Saturday night so I needed a nap Saturday afternoon and just as I was falling asleep I thought I heard a chirp... but it never came again.
I paged myself again from work that night (now that I knew my pager number... yes, I didn't actually know it, I had to look it up) but didn't think much more about it until I was sitting at the table when I got home this morning and thought I heard a chirp again. This time, I remembered my pager number and decided that I was going to page myself to see if I could hear it. I wasn't holding much hope since I had looked and looked, but it was worth a shot since I kept hearing these "mystery" chirps throughout the house.
Lo and behold, the pager went off!!! It sounded mysteriously like it was coming from my armoire so I opened it and looked behind all the food... not there. Then I paged again and I was certain it was coming from my bedroom on the other side of the wall... nope. One more time and I just knew it was coming from the mechanical room downstairs just under the armoire... still couldn't find it. All at once it dawned on me as I paged one more time, pulled out the armoire, and listened at the open vent cover..... So take one more look at the picture and see if you can see what I'm trying to show you:
The best I can figure out is that either Oliver was walking on the table while we were out one day (because honestly, Moose doesn't walk on the table but Oliver most definitely does) or Trucker knocked it off when he stole my cookies from the table (that's another story, of course) and then one of the cats, Moose, I think, was playing with it like a toy and knocked it down the vent. I still don't know exactly how we will get it from there, but Mike assures me when he gets home from work today he'll figure out a way. Until then, it's off to bed - and to laugh at silly cat antics. They sure are lucky we love them!!
