Sunday, July 8, 2012

Never Quite Relaxed

It's been months since Brody's open heart surgery.

He's been given the all clear to go to every 6 month check ups.

Our incidences of fever and infection have only been in his ears and eyes (ugh, pink eye!) and a quick acting virus as are normal for small children.

He's recently caught up developmentally, too.  Until a few weeks ago, Brody was much like a very young infant rather than one closer to being a toddler.  He couldn't roll over, he couldn't sit unassisted (and still fell over rather quickly), he couldn't crawl...he couldn't do anything.  All milestones we had reached prior to his OHS were gone.  Then about 3 weeks ago he had an awakening.  He has learned to clap, wave, roll, sit unassisted, crawl, and pull to standing all in that short time.

But I don't feel safe.

I know that the complications other than infection were ones that would be months or years down the road.  Scar tissue could impair the electrical pathways obstructing the sync of his rhythms permanently.  He'd need a pacemaker.  The pericardial patch could get something wrong with it.  The means used to correct his TAPVR could show to be insufficient as he ages and his heart gets more of a workout.  
I will always worry about infection settling in his heart.

I am also worried about some feeding issues that have cropped up post-operatively--including a lot of vomiting.  I worry something was damaged.

I guess it's just normal to feel this way.  I am no longer ever going to naively take my children's health as a given.

We've had Sasha checked as well since he recently showed to have a murmur.  God help me, it scared the crap out of me to get that news again.  Thankfully, his murmur is like 90% of murmurs.  It's nothing more than a noise.  His heart works perfectly and is built exactly as it should be.

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