Many years ago, my colleague Paul Rubin profiled a local pediatric cardiac surgeon for our paper, Phoenix New Times. The headline was “Prince of Hearts.”

But to me, it’s Paul who’s the prince of hearts. Maybe even the king.

You should read his article about Michael Teodori. It’s a wonderful piece of journalism, well written and the result of months (literally) of reporting. It is not a story, pardon the pun, for the faint of heart. I am, and although it’s been almost a decade since the piece was published, I can still remember standing in the doorway of Paul’s office, wincing as he tried to tell me what it was like to watch the doctor literally hold a baby’s heart in his hand.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” I said, covering my ears and waving my hands to make it stop. I just couldn’t go there. I had a one-year-old and (although I didn’t know it yet) another baby on the way, and I simply couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have a child with a serious medical problem, let alone one requiring open heart surgery.

Less than a year later — days after Sophie was born — I called Paul.

“Hey, you know that heart surgeon you profiled?” I asked. “I need his number.”

Paul didn’t just give me the doctor’s number. He called him personally. He assured me this particular procedure was the simplest these surgeons performed, talked me through the whole thing — several times, although I never did understand just what they did to Sophie’s heart. (Defense mechanism.) Four months later, on the day of the operation, Paul left work to come to the hospital and visit the nurses he’d gotten to know in the pediatric ICU, making sure they’d give Sophie extra-special care. He sat with us in the waiting room, and when Ray and I were able to see Sophie, he stayed behind and waited with my parents. At one point I looked up, and my dad was standing by Sophie’s bed. I was shocked; my father’s not the type to hang out near  medical tubing and bloody incisions. Paul had convinced him to come in and see her.

Nobody convinces my dad to do anything. But nobody had told Paul that.

By the time Sophie needed her second heart operation, at age 4, she and Paul were great friends. Post-surgery, she was understandably cranky, and pushed most visitors away. Not Paul. For months he told the story about how Sophie reached up from her hospital bed, grabbed his finger, and refused to let go.

Lots of people pass the Sophie Test, but few with the flying colors of this guy. When she sees him she goes nuts, and has announced on more than one occasion that she intends to marry him. (Awkward for his current wife.)

Don’t get me wrong. Paul is no saint. In the nearly 20 years we worked together, I wanted him dead on more than one occasion. He can be stubborn, and tact is not always his strong suit. I’ll never forget where I was standing the day he told me a cover story I’d just written was the worst thing he’d ever read in our paper. (An insult I’m still not quite ready to admit as true.)

But I also remember every rare, hard-earned compliment — including last week’s, when he told me how much he likes reading my blog. (It should be noted that when I started this blog, Paul cringed and made faces at the mere idea.) In the last 20 years, the guy has defended me against bullies and bitches; taught me a lot of what I know about journalism; introduced me to trusted sources; and brought me back documents from the courthouse on the hottest summer days. (And if you’ve ever been to Phoenix in July, you know that’s a big deal.)

We joked often that in all our years in the same office, we’d rarely been to lunch together; we were both too busy. But when I needed him, he was there. And he was there for Sophie.

This week, Paul cleared out his office. Even though I’m on the other side of the building, and never could hear his phone conversations or his jazz music, somehow the place feels quieter now. I walked by his mailbox and noticed there’s still a box of Thin Mints in it, a purchase he made from my girls back in January. He doesn’t eat that kind of thing — the biggest treat I’ve seen him allow himself is one Hershey’s kiss from my candy jar, almost every afternoon — but he bought a box of Girl Scout cookies every year when the girls walked around the office with their order forms.

I’d always tell him not to, offering to erase the order after Sophie had sweet talked him — she’d never know the difference. But he’d always insist, saying he wanted to do it for the girls.

He’s that kind of guy.

Tomorrow is the second anniversary of Sophie’s second open-heart surgery.

This afternoon Ray and Annabelle left on a Brownie camping trip (earning my husband the Dad of the Year award, since he didn’t renege when he learned he was the only father going!) so it will be just the two of us this weekend.

Sophie and I will be busy celebrating tomorrow, so I wanted to share this now. It’s our newest refrigerator art — it came home in her backpack a few days ago, drawn by a friend in her class.

Yeah, I thought, when I looked at the sweet drawing. I’ve been thinking about Sophie’s heart a lot lately, too.

Taking a step back from the week’s tumultuous events, I have to admit that  it’s a nice luxury, being able to worry about hurt feelings and slights from bullies, rather than leaking valves and oxygen deprivation.

Thank you again, Dr. Michael Teodori, for fixing Sophie’s heart. Not so long ago, a kid with that heart defect wouldn’t have been around for first grade.

And now, you’ll have to excuse me. I have a dinner date with the cutest six year old around.

Today is the one-year anniversary of Sophie’s heart surgery. I don’t really think of the other anniversary of the first surgery (she was four months old) since that one didn’t take. A little more than a year ago, on a very hot morning in August, I was turning out of the busy parking lot of Pro’s Ranch Market, balancing a pack of obnoxiously bright cupcakes on the seat next to me, when my cell phone rang.

“Sophie needs open heart surgery again,” Ray said, without pretense. He’d taken her to what had become a routine check up with the cardiologist. Nothing routine this time; Sophie had sprung a leak.

It took a while to get in to see the surgeon (it wasn’t an emergency; Sophie’s got the most common DS heart defect, A/V canal) and by then, we were well into mid-October. The surgeon was kind enought to wait til after Halloween, so Sophie could trick or treat. He’s that kind of guy.

“Do you remember your doctor’s name?” I asked Sophie when I got her up this morning, and told her it was exactly one year since her surgery.

She shook her head.

“Dr. Teodori.”

“Oh! Oh! Dr. Teodori! I love him! I love him so much!” she said, with even more emotion than is typical for Sophie. Dr. Teodori inspires that accross the board, and not just because of his surgical success rate. I’ve never seen such good bedside manner.

And then she started chattering, the thoughts and words barely keeping up with each other. I did hear “apple juice! Apple juice!”

When we talk about the surgery, which really isn’t often, I remind Sophie that when she woke up, those were her first words: apple juice. She takes medicine twice a day to lower her blood pressure. That, and the scars and the big bump of bone on her chest are reminders. So is the appointment we have with the cardiologist next week, for a check up.

There’s nothing routine about those check ups anymore. Never will be again. Sophie was showing no signs at all that there might a problem, last year. So I wonder all the time: Is her heart okay? Why does she need naps when the other kids don’t? Are those bags under her eyes? Are her hands and feet cold; is her circulation bad?

After we got the news that she’d need more surgery, I looked back and realized that for weeks before that, Sophie had been taking my hand and putting it over her heart, when we cuddled. I wonder now if she knew  something the rest of us didn’t.

If she knows anything this time, she’s not saying.

I couldn’t find the Glo-Worm this morning, a gift from our dear friend Sawyer, a fourth grader who walks Sophie from the lunch room to the playground almost every day. But here’s our girl, as she was leaving for school.