It's been a L O N G time since I've written anything here. It wasn't intentional. Life with a child who has special needs is so unbelievably busy! There have been a lot of changes for X in the past 7 months. (YIKES! Seven months since my last entry?! I promise I'll try to do better!).In September 2014, we headed back to the all-too-familiar hospital for X's next round of surgery. This time, he needed an inguinal hernia repaired. I've linked you to some information about what an this type of hernia is if you're interested in learning more. Anyway, this had needed to be done for a while, but X was being his usual trooper self and not really letting anything slow him down.
We were going to combine this surgery with his abdominal surgery done in April 2014. But, both we and his team felt like the additional time under anesthesia and the additional incision to recover from would be a lot. It turned out to be the best decision to wait. Recovery from that abdominal surgery was hard for X.
In addition to repairing the hernia, the time had also come to do a surgery to correct the eye crossing that X had. There are a couple of causes for a child's eyes to cross. I'll get into this in more detail in another post. The short version is that sometimes it's a physical problem and sometimes it's a neurological problem. In X's case, the problem was (Is? Technically, the issue still exists. His body can just compensate for it now.) neurological and a direct result of the significant bleeds he had as a newborn. The technical name for the eye crossing is strabismus.
He had surgery first thing in the morning. He was the first child into the operating room that day. I guess that's one benefit to needing two different surgeons to do surgery for your child. Surgery took a little over two hours. X never does great after anesthesia. It's due to some other issues I'll talk about at some point in the future. Bottom line: he needs oxygen and lots of after anesthesia is introduced into his system.
I was also so grateful we were in the hospital that first day because pain control can also be an issue. Luckily, there are better options for pain control when in the hospital than what is available for use at home. Keeping X comfortable is directly related to is oxygen needs and his recovery time.
He's all recovered now. His eyes are so much better. He can see better! The hernia is no longer an issue. He's also been GROWING! He's grown 3 inches taller in the past 7 months. In just the past two months, he's gained a whopping seven pounds!!
X is now combat crawling quite quickly. He can sit up completely on his own now, but he does still need to use his hands to keep his balance. He's getting better and better. It's just about his body learning how to find that perfect center for balancing. He's started to take steps if we help hold him up. He can feed himself from a spoon...although food is still not something he really wants. He still drinks mainly bottles, but he's getting adequate nutrition, so we'll get rid of the bottles at some future point. I don't really care when that happens. X just recently got a gait trainer which is pretty much a super fancy walker. It helps hold him up so he can learn to take steps and be independently mobile.
X is also talking up a STORM! He talks about anything and everything. He remembers new information very easily and has learned a number of things that impress not only us, but his developmental team as well.
Finally, X is already 2 1/2 years old. He'll be 3 before we know it...or are ready for it! He has taken 2 by storm and loves all the changes being a toddler brings. :)
So there you have the somewhat condensed version of everything X has been up to for the past 7 months. I'll probably write another entry tomorrow. I'm planning to anyway! There's a lot still to talk about and many more thoughts I have going through my head that I plan to share.
