Given how public I can be about my profane, weird, wacky thoughts as well as my opinions about other things, I also am pretty damn private about some of the personal stuff going on in my life. I think it's because I don't like being a drama queen or drawing attention to all the weird stuff going on in my life, especially when there's a lot of people with worse situations.
But last week, immediately after Maddie was born, she had a rough start. A little more than 24 hours after her birth, she was diagnosed with transposition of the great arteries (aka TOGA, which got my chanting like Bluto from Animal House for a second). My mom first called me, but didn't offer a lot of information about what was going on, but after talking to Stella for a bit, I got enough information to figure out what was going on via the Internet.
No, I did not look at Web MD, otherwise I think I would've gotten a diagnosis that Maddie had cancer. However, medical school websites offered me enough of an idea as to what was going on so what fears I had were eased a little bit.
Fortunately, phone calls between me, Stella and Dan helped educate me more about what was going on. In a sick way, if you had to have a heart defect, TOGA's not a bad one to have. But it was still hard to take the news. Babies aren't supposed to start their lives in such a tough way, but it occurs. It's a harsh reminder that nothing is promised to us -- we aren't promised health, wealth or even that we'll survive.
It was a hard waiting period for me and I can imagine how hard it was for my sister and her husband. However, my sister's a tough cookie and after the initial shock, they both showed how strong they were through the whole ordeal. Dan's parents also deserve a lot of thanks and praise for taking care of Elliott during this time (who also provided a bit of comedy relief to his parents during this time).
Maddie underwent her surgery on Thursday, and she's now in recovery. We don't know how long she'll be in the hospital -- recovery's up to this little feisty girl. From what I've heard, she's a little scrapper -- the nurses are scared of her because she hates diaper changes and temperature checks (hey, who likes having a thermometer up their ass?) and lets them know on no uncertain terms. While she's supposed to be getting plenty of rest and recovering, Maddie's been twitching, fussing, clenching and unclenching her fists.
I've got a lot of hope for that girl. She's one tough cookie and I have a feeling that she's going to need her strength to deal with her big brother, who's one hurricane of energy.
Welcome to the world little girl -- I think that you've proven that you're tough enough to deal with whatever comes your way.
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