Well, it almost rained. Seems a bit absurd to refer to what happened today in our part of Southern California as rain, given how this hurricane season is treating the southeast of the country, but I'll take what I can get.
And so will Kiernan's mom. Any weather change is welcome as it gives her a chance to try out some new piece of cute clothing. Today he got to experience a raincoat and a hood, which was a good thing since the next time it rains around here the coat probably won't fit him. Anything that has a number lower than 12 (as in, 12 months) on it he has grown out of, and that includes most things that are supposedly for 9-12 month olds. He's a big kid, exceedingly healthy, and except for the six inch scar running a vertical line down his chest, you'd never known that he just had a heart defect repaired.
Tuesday was Post-Op Day 12. Some highlights from the day include going to get a post-op x-ray that we will take to Kiernan's cardiologist for his appointment on Thursday, a sign language class in the living room, and what may have been Kiernan's first steps (although this is under dispute). The kid was getting close to walking before the surgery; I was certain that the surgery and the recovery period to follow would set him back a couple months. At least a few weeks. Boy was I ever wrong. We were discharged from the hospital on Post-Op Day 3, and by that evening Kiernan was back to pulling himself up to standing and cruising around the room by holding onto the furniture. Since that day he has only gotten stronger, more bold, and more insistent that he doesn't want help in moving around, all of which have combined to turn his parents into basket cases. His body just isn't ready yet for the kind of banging around that comes with learning to walk. They said at the hospital that as he healed he wouldn't do anything to hurt himself. Unfortunately, they didn't tell him that.
The x-ray thing went fine, incidentally. It was good for him to get out of the house for a bit. Kiernan is an extremely social baby, which he gets from his mom, and having to be cooped up in the house for all this time is beginning to make him stir crazy. As he heals we really can't take him in public much; his immune system just can't take contact with a lot of people yet. Not getting the chance to charm every person he passes in the grocery store is tough on the little guy, so even the few people at the x-ray place made a big difference.
We got to take the x-rays with us, too. As soon as we got home we held them up to the light and examined them, seeing at long last the wires the folks at the hospital told us were inside his chest, holding his sternum back together as the bones heal. These wires will always be there. In the x-ray they look kind of like the wire you get when you strip the paper off of those cheap twist-ties from the produce section of the grocery store. Five separate loops, each about the size of a dime in a row down his chest.
The other thing you can see in the x-ray is how his teeth are coming in, which is unexpected and kind of cool, or at least we thought it was cool until two this morning when he woke up screaming because so many of them are cutting through at the same time. Anyone who believes in Intelligent Design obviously never sat up all night with a baby who was teething.
Finally, in the side view of the x-ray is the only thing that causes me some measure of concern. As I said, you can see the wires holding his sternum together quite clearly in the shots. They show up in the midst of the shadowy image like glow sticks. For some reason, in the side view x-ray, you can see one distinct line, like a straight piece of wire maybe a couple of centimeters long, all by itself in the center of his chest. I'm sure there is a logical explanation for it, but for us laymen, looking at this picture of the inside of our son's body, it is disconcerting to see such an anomaly. I suppose we'll find out what it is at our appointment on Thursday.
In the meantime, it's back to chasing around this baby who is far too close to becoming a toddler.
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