My mother would sit you down and recite you with the exact birthdays in which I have forgotten to send a card, whilst my wife would happily let you know the amount of times I need reminding about her own birthday, our anniversary or even Joshua's neo-natal check ups.
But the date of the 12th August is somewhat etched into my mind. That is the date that your future king will be going in for his lip assessment. I remember this partially because of what it is. Essentially it is where the doctors are going to measure him up, check out his clefts and look at the available options. How they are going to do the repair and when, on both his lip and palate.
But more because it's the first big milestone on his cleft journey. Its both exciting and terrifying at the same time. I have no idea what to expect, what types of complications may arise, what indeed the doctors may tell us. I do know its the first step towards surgery, which is the bit that scares me the most.
The little guy is so tiny and in 2 - 3 months hes going to be operated on. Its not a thought I like to dwell on too much. If you fancied you could take a look at any of the available cleft forums on the web, in pretty much any one you care to read you will see posts from parents posting about how they are scared for the upcoming operation, and, after the operation, how much they miss their childs "wide smile".
Being that I knew my son was going to be born with a cleft, I had already frequented many of these forums. I wondered how these people could worry so much and miss the cleft. I mean these are trained doctors and the operation carries very little risk. The cleft itself needs to go, for the child's sake right?
But now Joshua is here I understand in full. Little risk is too much risk, and its heartbreaking to think of little JJ in pain after the op.
In regards to missing the cleft lip when it's gone, I have already stated in a previous post how he looks like he was born to sport it. He has just started to smile, smiles that are not caused by wind that is (I try so hard to get a pic, but he enjoys changing his expression before I get one), and his smile looks stunning, why in gods name would you want to change something so perfect?
You kind of feel like things are all planned out and set in concrete, with no way of you altering or adapting its course. And then, if you could stop it, would you want to?
The answer to that last question is a resounding no. Of course Joshua needs to have the operation, society is such that he needs a "normal" looking lip (whatever the hell that is), sad, but true. He certainly needs the operation on his palate which would otherwise dramatically effect his speech. Doesn't mean I need to embrace the fact that he needs to go through it though.
Doctors are becoming a steadfast part of our life to be honest. The other day JJ went for one of his Neonatal check ups. In that check up the doctor identified a heart murmur, could be nothing, could be something, we don't know yet. In itself it needs a scan and the result of which could affect the date of his cleft operations.
I mean they wont operate on a child that has so much as a cold, so if it turns out Joshua has something wrong with his ticker, I'm fairly certain the op is getting pushed back until that is fixed. Am I worried about that, or that their might be something wrong with his heart? I don't know, it all seems to be the same big ball of worry.
To be honest, its a lot of not knowing. And I hate not knowing. I've forgotten the date that the heart scan is on too....August 20 something. Rubbish so I am!
Medical update aside, the boy is doing fantastic. He is strong as a very small ox...An Oxlett lets say. The little differences and changes I see each day are amazing. He can hold his head up for the majority of the time and is sturdy. He cant crawl yet of course, but he has the movements down. If you put him on his belly he looks like he is a really small dehydrated bald man, scrabbling around in the desert to get water. Ha!
Hes also lovely and chubby. In fact i have nicknamed him "fatman", you know, like "dinna, dinna, dinna, dinna, dinna FAT MAN!!" to the bat man tune. The wife goes nuts, apparently saying that is going to cause him to get Anorexia Nervosa or some bollocks, so we cant call him that. Shame, he seemed to like it.
On the subject of my wife, I need to make an editorial correction. Apparently in my last post, I made it appear that it was me that got up for every night feed. Obviously not the case.
For the sake of my marriage, I have been asked to let you all know that I only ever do some of the weekend night feeds, and very, very rarely one or two of the week night feeds. The wife deserves some recognition for the rest.........I have never heard of a child that has been taught to feed itself by 7 weeks, so she deserves some credit.
Oooooh Im in so much trouble!
Here's the boy looking awesome:
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