Thankful Thursday

Oops! I almost went through the entire day thinking it was Wednesday!

I missed Thankful Thursdays last week because we had one of those Crazy moments that involved my 5 yr old, and my newborn – we had to rush out to the pediatrician first thing in the morning and then run over to UVA for an appointment with the Heart Center clinic because Owain was having some issues last week that made me very nervous. By the time we got back from all of those appointments Thursday was pretty much over and there was just enough time for a quick dinner, bedtime for the kids and I passed out on the couch before ever realizing that the day was over.

What is Thankful Thursdays? Check out why I started this little moment of reflection that I posted when I decided I needed to slow down and look at what I have.

Since today is almost over, and we still have much to do, this will have to be quick this week.

I mentioned that Ariel had to be whisked off to the pediatrician – my 5 yr old, in some moment of not being able to hear a word I say, regardless of the fact that I was yelling towards him to stop, and watch out for Ariel, he blankly stared at me as he tripped and fell on top of Ariel. Hard. It was one of those painfully slow motion kind of moments where I couldn’t believe it was happening. It happened first thing in the morning, my husband was already gone for the day, and I was juggling all the kids, getting their breakfast, changing diapers – and I put her down on a pillow on the floor for just a minute to take care of something – thinking it was a bad idea to put her down, but thinking ‘What can go wrong in just a minute?’ Now I see what can go wrong. Silly me, not very smart – but we took her in to her pediatrician and she was fine, mostly scared and not really hurt too bad. I am so very Thankful that she was OK.

I also mentioned that I was nervous about some things with Owee. I have noticed in the past couple of weeks that there are times when his fingertips and toes are blue…but not all the time. I also noticed that sometimes he gets out of breath and starts panting, and then I noticed one day when he didn’t have a shirt on, that when he started having a hard time breathing, that I could see his skin pulling in between his ribs when he breathed in. He has been learning to walk, and wants to do laps, back and forth, back and forth. He loves it and has a great time, but even when he is out of breath, panting and turning blue, he still doesn’t want to stop. If I stop holding his hand he just crawls over to the table or couch and starts cruising along, around and around the table over to the couch and back again. It is a wonderful thing to watch, he is so excited, but at the same time it is scary because he turns so blue, and has such a hard time breathing. So I talked to Peds Cardiology, and they say bring him on in. He fought every test, the couldn’t even check his blood pressure, he kept trying to rip the cuff off. He pulled at his leads for his EKG and the wire for the pulse oximeter and screamed and wrestled with us through his Echo – but in the end he got a clean bill of health.

Basically, now that he is active all of these things are going to happen to him. It might take several months for his body to adjust to being so active or it may take a year, or his body may never completely adjust. It is all part of how his Heart works after his Glenn Procedure. At some point after he learns to walk, gets older, and when he settles down and doesn’t have this drive to move move move all the time, he will most likely learn to take cues from his body and take a break when he gets short of breath. As long as his oxygen levels are still in the 80’s when he is resting, he is considered just fine. I am more than Thankful that we are not ready to start moving forward with his next surgery, and that we still have lots of time before we start thinking about that – the timeline still remains “around 2-3 year old”. Whew! What a relief.

And that is pretty much it for me this week (and last). It has been one wild ride and I am running out of steam.