Reality Check

Those of you that know me well, know that I am a huge procrastinator. So, it should come as no surprise that I have procrastinated on writing this post. For many reasons really. One, it has been well over a year since I updated the blog. Second, I guess I just don't really want to face the fact that our false sense of "normalcy" is about to end. The first 6 months or so of Colt's life was such a whirlwind, with him being born at 33 weeks and then undergoing two open heart surgeries by the time he was 6 months. He has done remarkably well. He has exceeded his doctors expectations in every aspect. We always knew he would, and never believed anything otherwise. But, here we go again. We knew this time would come. Even before he was born we knew he would need a series of three surgeries. But after things seemed to calm down, we have had almost two years to the day of "normal". (Minus the quarterly check ups and the occasional rush to daycare after getting a call that he looks blue.) We will make our way back to Durham for a heart catheterization on April 21 and he will have his surgery the next day. This surgery is called The Fontan, and the surgeons will connect his pulmonary artery to his inferior vena cava. He will once again be on a heart/lung bypass machine and will be in the hospital between 1-2 weeks. He will then be out of daycare for a minimum of 6 weeks, so he can recover and to make sure his chest bones have time to heal. We will not be able to pick him up under his arms for that same amount of time. We are very optimistic that he will come through this surgery just as well as the last two, and he will be back to normal in no time! I do have some anxiety about how we will be able to entertain him in the hospital and how we will keep him from pulling out his chest tubes, wires, etc. However, I know all the doctors and nurses have been there, done that and everything will be fine. The only thing that may prevent this surgery from happening next month is if he gets sick and has to go on antibiotics. We have less than a month to go and are hopeful that will not happen! Please continue to keep him in your thoughts and prayers in the coming weeks that he may come through this surgery stronger than ever.