hold your thumbs

[dragonlady7]

I read somewhere that in Germany, instead of "I'm crossing my fingers for you!" when they want to wish someone luck, they say "I'm holding my thumbs for you!"

Anyway. Everyone cross your fingers or hold your thumbs or whatever people do in your locale for my nephew David, he of the cute learning-to-walk video I posted the other day, because his surgery starts tomorrow morning at 6:30 am and he won't be done until 1 or 2 pm. They're repairing a hole in the septum of his ventricle, a heart defect he was born with which has been healing on its own but they realized this fall would not improve any more without surgical intervention, and might get worse. They wanted to operate on him while he was healthy, before cold and flu season. He has been thriving, well above the height average for his age, and began walking a couple of weeks ago, not yet eleven months old. He doesn't have words yet but "talks" a lot, very expressively, mimicking the cadence if not the content of his parents' speech.
My family's very nervous, as he's so tiny and it's open-heart surgery (sometimes they can go in with those little mini thingies, so there's no big opening, I forget what they're called, and not have to split the ribcage open, but not in this case), but the surgeons have been very optimistic since the day they diagnosed him. Apparently it's a very common defect, and is quite easy to repair (as easy as heart surgery ever is), and so they do not anticipate any complications. His grandpa on his dad's side is a cardiac surgeon and has reviewed the case and has been able to tell my sister and her husband exactly what to expect and what's going on. He should be back to his bouncing happy self in a short little while, and be even better for it in the long run.

But still. We could use the luck.

Comments

[kkatowll.livejournal.com]

I agree with everybody's assessment: it's a pretty common surgery, if you can ever call open-heart surgery common. My mom takes care of the teeny babies with this defect, right after they're born, and so far not one has later died from the surgery.
But I expect he will take a slight developmental step backward -- which won't even really be noticeable to anybody else since he's ahead right now, but walking will probably have to be relearned. No worries though, it shouldn't have to take him very long. Will you see him at Christmas?

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

We're still planning on having Thanksgiving together up in New York. That was when we'd planned on all having Christmas, because Adam's family insists on coming there for Christmas. (I guess it's their turn? I don't know.)
So we're really hoping he's feeling better in time to make the loooooong drive up to New York! He's done the drive before and it was astonishingly not-stressful, but now that he's a little older, who knows?
But we're busy hoping the surgery goes well now; once it's done, then we'll start hoping he gets better in time to drive up. He'll have a month and a bit to recuperate before then, and the doctors said it shouldn't be a problem. So we'll see.

Thanks for the reassurances.

[lenine2.livejournal.com]

Aw, poor little guy. This must be very worrying for all of you, despite it being relatively easy to fix. No one wants to see someone that little go through surgery, and geez, hearts are scary to most non-medical people.

I will quote Dagmar and say I am holding my thumbs and my toenails for you.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

That's where I heard it, Dagmar.

[lenine2.livejournal.com]

Actually, first (http://lenine2.livejournal.com/118705.html?thread=877233#t877233) it was Wulfila, but then Dagmar added the toenail gesture. I tried to picture a person walking while holding their toes, and must admit it cheered me up a bit.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

Oh, I missed the toenail bit, I think I just saw the thumbs part while skimming comments. Your entries get the best comment threads. What's it like being that awesome?

I will think about toenails and be cheerful, then.

[lenine2.livejournal.com]

What's it like being that awesome?

*splutter*

Shit, sister, you made me blush.

My thoughts will be with you guys tomorrow.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

I'm serious, though, that's why I always leave dumb comments on your entries-- so I can lurk and read the comment threads, because they're usually hilarious. :D

Thanks.

[applegnat.livejournal.com]

Ooooh. My best wishes for everyone in the family, David most of all. What a cutie.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

Thank you. He is a cutie, but I figured I was biased.

[ravenclaw-eric.livejournal.com]

All my best wishes to the little guy, and I hope that the surgery and recovery are boringly routine!

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

That's what we're hoping too. Thanks. :)

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

He'll be in my thoughts, that little soon-to-be brother-in-scars!

Though I'd like to lodge a complaint regarding this bit: well above the height average for his age

BOO!

I am officially envious of an 11-month-old, as it's generally theorized I would have been taller, had I grown more before my surgery. (Of course, I had hole in both the atrium *and* the ventricle, so I was extra screwed...)

Still, fingers crossed, thumbs held, etc etc. ::hugs::

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

> lodge a complaint

I know! He's below-average weight, though. So he seems to be taking after his leggy mom rather than his football-playing dad, so far. (Did you see the photo on my Flickr stream of Adam throwing him up in the air and catching him? Dude the arms on that guy!)
One of the things the medical people have been looking at throughout his infancy is his rate of growth-- apparently it would have been a sign that he needed the surgery earlier if he had failed to thrive, and they more or less expected his growth to be slow and his development to be late. Katy met another baby at a play group who was twice his age and half his size, and very lethargic and not playful, only to discover that this girl had been born with a more serious version of the same heart defect-- that scared her pretty good. So the medical people think that his fast growth and development are a very good sign, and up until late August were thinking that his heart would heal on its own. Unfortunately, it turns out, the wall of the chamber was thickening instead, and he would have wound up with two chambers where there should have been one.

But you're probably right-- you almost certainly would have been a much taller woman if not for the combined trauma of the more serious heart defect, and the major surgery to fix it.

He's got tall genes on his momma's side but if he ends up short like his daddy we'll love him anyway. (Just kidding, his dad's five-eleven. Katy hasn't been able to wear heels in five years.)

Anyway, he can tell people when he gets older that he was in a knife fight. That's what I always tell people to use to explain any awesome scars, unless the real story is even awesomer.

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

He's got tall genes on his momma's side but if he ends up short like his daddy we'll love him anyway.

That's the bitch of it: My whole family is tall!

Anyway, he can tell people when he gets older that he was in a knife fight.

If the scar even stays with him. A friend of mine had the same surgery, and there's no noticeable scar. It'll entirely depend on how his skin heals. I just have particularly scar-prone skin.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

My family is pretty tall-- Dad's side tends toward petiteness, so although they're not very tall, they look it relative to their width. Mom's frame has totally dominated this generation, so we've all inherited her breadth and *some* of the height to go along with it, but who knows what's lurking in there recessively. (I'm as short as my cousins, but twice their weight, damn the luck. I'm the shortest of my sisters, though, and have no youthful misadventures to pin the blame on.)
At least my family is pretty mixed. And Adam's family tends toward not much by way of height, but imposing girth, so we'll see. David could rock whatever he winds up with, I expect. (I anticipate him being an impossible teenager. Also he'll have a hilarious accent. This should be good.)

> scar-prone
Well, yeah. But scars are hot. Especially when accompanied by outlandish stories.
I've always sort of intended to have some dramatic scar that I'm deliberately mysterious about. I've always kind of intended to be the sort of person who is mysterious. You can see how that has never happened, and never will, but I keep encouraging others to it, since I seem no more able to be mysterious than I am able to be tall or skinny. (Both are also things I had intended to be when I grew up.)

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

Height and weight in my family is a frigging craps shoot.

My mom and her sister are both statuesque dirty blondes, with not much in the way of curves.

My brother is essentially Big McLarge-Huge, at 6'2, with our linebacker grandfather's shoulders.

My half-sister is 5'2, with more or less the same build as me, but a bit slimmer.

My dad was 5'10 (he's 77, he's not 5'10 anymore), and had an athletic build, from what I've seen in old photos. (He was already 51 when I was born, so the build I've seen him with my whole life may not be entirely representative.)

My uncle, his brother, is about the same.

Apparently, they also had cousins who were 6'?? giants.

I HAVE NO IDEA, MAN.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

Obviously, genetics is not as simple as they made it seem when we were in elementary school bio. There are a lot of factors. I mean, even blue eyes-- both my parents have blue eyes so I do too, but not the same color. Mom has a sort of muddy blue, paler and indistinct; Dad has bright piercing cornflower-blue eyes. I got Mom's eyes. Ann and Fiona got Dad's.
Grandma K had a distinguished profile with strong cheekbones and a pronounced chin and nose, very oval-shaped, classic Irish. Dad looks like her, and Fiona and Ann look like her. I got Mom's round face instead. This is why Fiona has looked 30 since she was 12, and will look 30 until she dies. I will look 23 and cute until suddenly I look 50 and puffy.

It's a crapshoot, really it is. I just wish I could convince myself to stop thinking of certain totally randomly inherited traits as being BETTER than others. There's nothing wrong with having the old Dutch hips instead of the slim Irish ones. Ann got the skinny hips but also got the Dutch cankles, which I did not (I have quite distinguished ankles, thank you very much). And Ann hates her chin, which I envy because her strong bone structure will age better than mine.

The only thing I'm justified in being annoyed about is an apparent mutation both Ann and I got out of nowhere: missing teeth. I am going to have to rock my baby molars until they fall out, because I did not get 3 of my 12-year molars-- they just weren't there in my jaw. Ditto for Ann. Either our wisdom teeth will fill the gap, or we're going to need false teeth. Bummer!

We all got Grandma's boobs, though. It's a pretty scary lineup when we get matching sweaters for Xmas.

[frualeydis.livejournal.com]

We also say "Hold your thumb" in Sweden. And I will.

/Eva

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[alex-beecroft.livejournal.com]

I'll cross my fingers and also pray because no matter how routine it is, it's pretty scary for everyone else involved. At least he won't remember it when he's older.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

> won't remember it

If he does, we'll just tell him it was an alien abduction, so that he'll be constantly irrationally terrified, instead of being afraid of the doctor. Because it'd be no good to have a doctor phobia.

Thank you. :)

[gasslight.livejournal.com]

I trust all will be well with the munchkin. Still, I'm holding my thumbs.

[buschibaby.livejournal.com]

I'm holding my thumbs. Thinking of you all.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

Thank you!!
I hope everything's going well with you-all!!!

[forodwaith.livejournal.com]

Luck to David!

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

Yay! Thanks! Just got a good status update from Dad, so yay! It helped! :)