1 year, and all is well

These posts are always weird.  I mean, on one hand, the whole purpose of this blog is to facilitate people who want to follow the life and times of a modern medical marvel, with the medical marvel part being pretty front and center.  And one of my favorite bloggers says that in order to be a good writer, you have to bleed.  But at the same time, I’m not a sad guy.  Plus, I hate whiners.  And people who do the very things that they claim to hate.  A lot of times, when I’m writing these posts, I feel like I’m whining.  “Woe is me, my baby has a heart defect.”  I mean seriously, who wants to read that?  On the other hand, I’m not sure I can write a “first year of life” update without it.

366 days ago, Christy gave birth to a beautiful baby boy.  Then I followed the doctors as they took him out to the hallway, put him on a warming bed, and stuck an IV in him.  It was a strange swirl of emotions - complete awe that this little person was my son, complete terror that he might die.  If on that afternoon, someone had showed me the pictures and videos that we’ve taken over the last year, I think I would have called them a liar.  Then they would have said, “are you serious?  That kid could be your clone.”  I would have responded, “maybe it’s my sister’s baby, the Vicknair genes are pretty strong.”  They would have replied, “Yes, but your sister’s baby will be half mexican.  Does that baby look mexican to you?”  To which I’d have said, “Touche.”

Paul as a baby

David at 4 weeks old

3 days later, there was heart surgery.  Then recovery.  Then lots of home care.  Then another surgery.  Then another recovery.  On the plus side, though, we were home by Christmas.  And through it all, David has been the awesomest baby that any parent could ever hope for.  Seriously, I think God gave him the heart defect because he is otherwise perfect.  The existence of perfect people isn’t allowed, so he had to throw in something to counterbalance how awesome David would turn out to be.  He’s well behaved, he’s smart, and he constantly makes me laugh.  All in all, totally worth it.


Today, we have a near-toddler on our hands.  (As an aside, I think we can all agree that a child is a baby until he actually toddles.  So, until he learns to walk, David is a baby, not a toddler.)  He turbo crawls everywhere, he knows baby signs, he loves food, he loves women, and he’s just generally about the smartest and funnest baby that I can conceive of.  The idea that he can get any better baffles me, but it seems to happen every day.  And here’s hoping we have a lot more days.

Happy Birthday, David.

Still kickin...

Unlike the previous phase of this adventure when it seemed like we visited the cardiologist every other day, we are currently on a once every 3-months schedule.  This way is a lot better.  

Today was the 12 month visit, only the third since we got back from surgery #2.  David’s gotten a lot better about all of the poking and prodding, and is a complete pimp with the nurses.  I wish there had been light in the room where they did the echocardiogram, because he was flirting like crazy with the technician.  For the first several months of his life, he absolutely hated things like EKGs and having his blood pressure taken. Today he was more concerned with adding a nurse to his harem than he was with the stickers all over him.

As for the doctor visit part, the cardiologist seemed quite happy with how David is progressing.  David is still right on or around the 5% growth curve (bigger than only 5% of babies his age), which I think is ok as long as he’s staying on that curve.  Which he has.  His blood oxygen saturation is still good (low 90%, normal is 100%), his blood pressure is good, and all of the things that they looked for in his echo were what they wanted to see.  The doctor even told us that David has a really nice head of hair - apparently one of the indicators that a person’s heart is having trouble is that the hair on his head will get thin and brittle.  Which David’s is not.

Everything else is still going quite well.  David has a couple more teeth coming in, front two on the top this time.  He’s chattering nonsense all the time.  I think I’m going to need some of those fancy Bose noise cancelling headphones once he actually starts talking.  He will stand and walk as long as he’s got something to hold on to.  We’re pretty sure he can stand by himself, but any time we manage to let go of him so that he’s on his own, he realizes that he’s standing on his own and sits down.  He’s eating pretty much anything that we do and seems to have finally figured out how to work a sippy cup.
One year old is coming pretty quickly.  I can’t believe that my baby is almost a toddler!  Next thing I know he will be leaving for college.  Oh well, I guess nothing lasts forever.  I wonder when I should start nagging him about grandbabies...