Thinking of Baby Owee – 3 Years Later

Today I was thinking about Wee Nut’s first couple of days and weeks after he came home from the hospital after his first open heart surgery. Today is the anniversary of his failed cath procedure at 6 days old. Dr Limm was hoping that he could go in and put a stent in to keep his PDA open so that he would get blood going to his lungs and, if the procedure would have succeeded he would not have needed his first open heart surgery to send his used blue blood to his lungs to pick up oxygen. Owee’s artery, around where his PDA was before it closed, is very much like a corkscrew the way it coils around. Dr Limm went in through both his neck and groin arteries hoping to get to his PDA, but the way his arteries corkscrewed around, the cath couldn’t make the curves.

We put so much hope into that procedure and when it failed we were devastated. My little Owee didn’t bounce back from that procedure well and spent the next couple of days fighting for his life.

I spent all day today thinking that I was missing something, like there was a thought just out of reach and I couldn’t put my finger on it. I kept thinking it had something to do with tonight’s Mended Little Hearts meeting. It wasn’t until I sat down and started writing this post tonight that May 9th clicked for me. It feels strange to have gone almost all day long before I remembered what today meant to us and how I was feeling 3 years ago tonight.

Instead of thinking of how helpless and scared I felt just after Owee was born, I have spent this week thinking about how amazed I am at his strength and bravery. I went through photos from the first couple of days and weeks after he came home. Today he still looks very much like he did 3 years ago.