smacky and bucky

Things have been hectic around here, as you can imagine. Henry has been home six days now. At a followup appointment this week, the cardiologist said there was no longer any fluid around his heart (yay, antibiotics!) and at another appointment, his pediatrician said he no longer has a heart murmur!

Last night we went to a neighborhood pot luck dinner, and all the kids were playing outdoors. Henry didn't hesitate. He climbed down the back stairs and joined them.

We pulled him around the floor in a wagon this afternoon, and once he got over his initial fear, he leaned back and enjoyed the ride. This was after about 30 minutes of riding around and waving to the nurses. All of a sudden he just looked at my sister-in-law and smiled.

This kid is amazing. I'll write a longer post about it when I have my laptop later in the week, but I'm writing this on an iPad at Henry's bedside while he sleeps. So far so good. My son had open heart surgery, went on bypass, came off bypass, took some of my blood, got sewn back up, and came through like a champ. In a few months, he will forget this ever happened.

We made it through this final week. Wednesday was Henry's big prep day at the hospital: X-rays, EKG, and blood work. He was super brave, but he did cry during the blood work, and I held him (down) as they did it, which made it worse. I know he won't remember any of this (not even the surgery), but it's so tough to see him look at me crying because it hurts and he doesn't understand what's happening. But the waiting room had a separate little room with very cool toys and a TV showing cartoons and a little kid-sized sofa, so he and I made periodic visits there whenever he got too antsy to sit and listen to the endless talking of adults in white coats.

Thursday was more prep stuff in the morning, and a trip for me to a different hospital in the afternoon to do a directed donation (L and I are both A negative, so Henry is too, so I gave a pint in case he needs a transfusion). The woman working the blood bank was amazing. She said it was her retirement job and she enjoyed it. She told me all kinds of interesting things they don't tell you, like:

• For someone Henry's age, they can get NINE separate transfusions from one pint of blood.

• When the surgery is over, ask them if they used your blood, and if they didn't, ask them to tell the blood bank you release it to be used by whoever needs it. If you don't express that intent to them, the hospital throws the unused pint away!

We have grandparents and aunts coming to town this weekend and staying for a few days through the surgery and first day of recovery in the hospital. If all goes well, he'll be home Thursday (the 19th) at the earliest.

Last night I changed him into his footie pajamas and looked at his perfect smooth little chest and thought about how soon he's going to have a scar there. But then I imagined him in 20 years explaining to his significant other what that now tiny, faded scar is and how he doesn't remember the circumstances of it at all but his parents told him he got it when the doctors made him better and it made me feel a bit better.

We just want him to recover and go back to being that little supernova ball of energy you have trouble photographing he moves so fast!

Henry's surgery is one week from today.

This Wednesday is the all-day preop visit to the hospital for his bloodwork and such.

Thursday is another visit in the morning, followed by an afternoon visit to another hospital for me to donate a pint of blood in case he needs a transfusion during the surgery.

Friday is an absurd full day of work where I will attempt to focus on anything vaguely work-like.

And this weekend will be... I don't know. Trying to do fun things with the boy while not going insane counting down the hours.

In our ongoing mission to enjoy this crazy mild weather (and get out and do as much as possible in the days leading up to Henry's surgery) we took Henry on his first trip to National Zoo in DC last Saturday. He's 18 months old, so a bronze sculpture of a bear excited him as much as seeing a real panda, which is both hilarious and a little frustrating at times. "But there's a real bear right there! Look at the monkeys, not the little kid being pulled in a wagon by his dad!" Ha!

We saw lions, elephants, gorillas (he pointed at the young one and said "baby!" so that was a very cool moment), pandas, and orangutans. And lemurs, but any animal under a certain size doesn't count because Henry either didn't see them or didn't seem to care. So sorry, red panda. You were cute as hell, but the kid couldn't be bothered to notice you!

Song to accompany this post (can you guess what it will be???):

Yeah, so... I can't manage to document an item a day for the new blog I started (insert whiny voice here): "There's just too much to do!"

Henry's surgery is in less than two weeks and... the purge blog is being purged too.

Sigh.