Making new {happy} memories

Rachel turned 17 months old today.  It also marked 6 months since her surgery.

David and I were just commenting last night how amazing it all was.  The doctors took most of her skull apart and put it back together and it hardly bothered her at all.  Six months later, the only order we have from the doctor is to keep a hat on her to keep her incision from getting sunburned.  With her complexion, she would be well covered anyway, so not even that has changed our normal routine.  Amazing.

My brain seems to have some sort of muscle memory.  For example, in spring 2007, I was extremely nauseous expecting our first daughter.  The next spring, the smells of the season brought back that nauseous feeling from time to time.  Weird.

This past week, I had a few anxious mornings.  Remembering this was the day we got the phone call form Dr. Jundt.  This is the day I hid in my bed.  This is the day we went to Sioux Falls and I got the bejeebers scared out of me.  And then we waited and waited because there was nothing else we could do.

Whenever I go through something tough, I want to use it for good.  I tried to log on to craniokids.org, a website to support parents going through various types of craniosynostosis, but I just couldn't do it.  It was too overwhelming.  The other night, I came across a chance mention of craniosynostosis in a story in Catholic Digest and I just wanted to run into Rachel's crib and scoop her up. 

I did share a very brief synopsis of our story on the Mayo Clinic website.   It already got one "helpful." :) If I can help one mom or dad feel a little bit better . . . if they don't have to wait weeks . . . months . . . to hear or see that it's all going to be OK . . . I wanted to at least do that. 

And, please, if you know of anyone with a child with craniosynostosis who needs encouragement, send them my way.  I may not be ready for an online forum, but I certainly can and would love to help one-on-one. 

 

So, anyway, enough of my sappyness.

As I said the other day, it is time to make NEW HAPPY memories THIS summer and we have been doing just that. 

As you can see, our poor cat Nip Nip is being a good sport with his new-found best friend.  Teresa loves her bike and has been venturing to the stop sign and back.  There are times that I feel a shift in my children's development and I am noticing that now.  Landen is growing up and teaches me so much.  Nathan has been so helpful and has grown out of his constant fighting back.  That was a good 6 years, but I'm ready to leave it behind!  It's good.

All good.