One week from surgery and we are back to almost normal! Which means no sleeping...

These bandages and pajamas - far behind us now!

Upon our discharge from the hospital the doctor gave mommy and daddy very explicit instructions:

"He (meaning me) can do anything he wants."

Ok so let me get this straight. I just came out from under the knife. My heart was stopped, cut open and repaired, placed back and made to beat again. But I can do whatever I want to do.

"If he has shortness of breath, he should stop whatever activity he is engaging in."

And then there's the issue of that red/pink line down my chest.

"Wash the scar every day. If you see any discharge, or if it looks infected come to the emergency room."

Ok, so what about school?

"Oh, that? No way. He needs to get permission from the surgeon first. Schedule an appointment to see him in a few weeks."

Ok, so again, let's get this straight: I can run, climb, be a general monkey and do "whatever I want/am able to do" but just don't go to school where I will be sitting for eight hours straight "resting" (except for my brain) rather than going stir crazy at home or climbing the walls there.

Perhaps that is because of infections and colds, but still. Let's not exaggerate.

Nevertheless as I embark upon my journey of recovery we sit here a week later in shock and awe. I occasionally need pain medication, but rarely.  I've stopped pointing at my chest and walking slightly stooped as I did those first few days. I've even stopped sleeping because, what with a a super-powered heart and all, I don't need as much rest as I did before.

Rest? Wait, I've never actually been one to sleep much anyway. I am on true hospital lag, meaning just a few hours hours of sleep can launch me through a long day with ease. Which really means that I am back to my pre-op self!

So physically I am charging ahead. Each day I look less and less like a human who has gone through surgery.

I can navigate the iPad as expertly as I did before the op!

Admittedly, I am a bit traumatized by the scars that are healing on my chest. They are a stark reminder that I really did freak everyone out, including myself, a week ago with record levels of stress in preparation for surgery.

Basically, if you saw me today you would think I were lying about OHS. You would think it was all a ploy to get your attention. The drama was intense and short lived and we never reached our worse expectations in terms of  potential complications and time in the hospital. Now, as we come down from the adrenaline that propelled us through those days, it's hard to believe it ever happened.

And from looking at me today, sans the scar, you would't believe it either.

I must thank you all for your prayers. With God's help I have powered through this sordid tale and am ready to surge on!

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And on the third day, I went home already!

And now for the most shocking news of the week:

"And on the third day, they sent me home."

The (other) book of Daniel chapter 8 verse 8

Not 72 hours after my chest was slit open, my sternum broken and my heart stopped for some vital repairs, I'm walking back home on my own two feet with very few restrictions applied to my life.

It's a bit unbelievable, if not unnerving. With a fresh scar and still clutching my chest (whether in drama or in pain I have yet to reveal), I was released into the feeble care of my non-medical professional parents. They felt the same way after my dramatic birth and then after my first OHS and then after being hospitalized for RSV and later pneumonia and when they took home a flammable oxygen tank for me to sleep with over night. Who would release a child like this into the care of his mere parents? I would not.

But mommy and abba have been down this road before when mommy regrets not having gone into medicine.

The truth is that once we left the ICU we probably could've snuck out of the hospital for several hours perhaps to the zoo or a park and no one would've noticed. There was not really much observation going on in the regular ward. Suddenly mommy and abba were full-fledged nurses who had to ask for and administer my own medicine and were left to wonder whether I was showing normal signs of pain or the kind of pain that indicated CODE RED.

On the positive side, at home we will be free of crying babies and beeping monitors. We will not be bored out of our minds. But then again, mommy and abba will not sleep anyway since they'll have to use the non-technological methods of checking my vitals, like feeling for a pulse, etc.

On another positive note, at the ICU we took some
paparazzi photos with head nurse Knuckles McGinty!

The key to a quick recovery is to relax at the
ICU like it's a day at the beach!
(P.S. That blood collector attached to my body
is translated from Hebrew as: grenade!)

From the above picture to this one in 36 hours!

Theme song of the day:

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On our way, Round 2 commences

 "I lift up my eyes to the hills - where does my help come from?"

Psalm 121:1

Only a champ gives thumbs up on his way to surgery!

My teammates rooting for and praying for me before the big day

It's one of the stranger things in life to walk into a hospital on your own two healthy feet, showing no signs of distress and saying, here I am, open me up and stop my heart for awhile!  I’d almost rather be rushing there with an emergency to justify the scope of it.

Nevertheless, mommy spoke with a most reassuring doctor who gave an astute second opinion: Barring any miracle that had gone on in my chest cavity, the surgery will help me in all sorts of ways, relieving both the heart muscle and the high blood pressure going on inside my heart. So may as well go ahead with it now. The sooner the better in order to avoid long-term damage.

Hugs are helpful like prayers

Relaxed and ready for what lies ahead

When I last did this I was also healthy going in, except I wasn't walking on my own feet yet: I was carried in as a wee 8-month-old baby. Now things will be a little different. Because now my own feet do carry me, and they don't go where they don't want to go.

Let's switch that to a positive: My feet go only where they want. And I'm not much of a follower.

So it will certainly be interesting to what my feet decide to do this morning: lie docilely in the hospital bed or buck like a bronco in protest to the absurdity of it all?

Despite my best resistance, I am sure of one thing. I know where my help comes from. And the truth is that this morning I went in well and easily. I was possessed by a rare and deep inner peace. And many smiles, mainly to dazzle the staff at the OR.

"My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth."

Psalm 121:2

(Same as above but for you, Yasmin)

I prayed for them too. After all, they will miss me for a few days

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Knocked Out!

Guess what I'm about to do!

You wouldn't be able to tell from the photos since I appear so chipper and nonchalant, but I was about to go under the knife. Well, perhaps that was a bit too dramatic. Truthfully there were no incisions or knives. But there was a hospital and general anesthesia involved.

Fun and games at the hospital

And now I am supposed to hear better. Thanks to the esteemed ENT Dr. Nazarian, I now have microscopic tubes in my ears and a lot less gunk. And a lot fewer adenoids (or one less adenoid as supposedly we only have one). What that means though is that I can no longer fake my talent of selective listening. Next to open heart surgery (click for link), this was a breeze.

So improved is my hearing already (the surgery was Wednesday) that mommy and abba are treating me as their new toy. They enjoy saying my name from different distances and varying decibels to see if I respond. Then they get all excited and ask each other, "Did you see that?!"

But unfortunately that also means they know I heard them say "no" or "don't touch," etc.

As you can see I was happy going into the ordeal. But coming out was another story. I've been called a "bad drunk" based on my drop from sugar highs (click here to see the ice cream debacle). Coming out of anesthesia was no different. When I awoke from the fog I moaned and thrashed for awhile. But a subsequent nap, this one not induced by anesthesia, brought me back to my old self quite instantly.

Like nothing happened. Here's me just
four hours after the surgery.

Raia joined our little outing, the first time she left the apartment since coming home from the hospital. And lucky for her, her first trip out was to another hospital. The only problem with her coming along was that her unique (tiny) size and cuteness garners her as much as if not more attention than me. I'm not sure I appreciate the competition.

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A Force to be Reckoned With on the Broadway Stage of our Lives

Lucas practices this look...

...and I perfect mine!

I believe our sister is already angling for the spotlight and how she may steal it from me. I am constantly in a tug of war with Lucas for this spotlight and, as you may recall, I managed to wrest the attention away from Lucas' birth (see link for more info) with a dramatic ride to the hospital in an ambulance while connected to an oxygen machine. You really can't beat tactics like that. I made sure to remain in the hospital up until and then even after Lucas' birth and send off so that my homecoming was after his.

But since his birth, Lucas has proven to be a formidable opponent. When he started out, his cry was an Academy-Award-winning-wake-up call that was akin to the Nazgul from Lord of the Rings. It caused even the bravest adults to react with sheer terror, and mommy was even too traumatized to close her eyes lest she be awoken in such a manner from a much-needed deep sleep. Now in his older days, Lucas channels Italian soccer player diva mannerisms by collapsing into dramatic cries. On the ground. Replete with fake tears and the trademark flip of the hair from his forehead. His Italian side really shines through when it comes to drama.

Lucas is already a force to be reckoned with
on the attention-getting front

But then again, I am constantly working
on a new look to sport as well

But this new baby - even before birth - is proving a force that could outdo the both of us. First of all she has the advantage of being of the princess gender. Second, she is the youngest child. And third, she has already caused some major upheaval in our lives by placing mommy in the hospital for nearly two weeks.

If you can judge a personality by one's pre-birth behavior, this one will also try to out-dance me on the dance floor - which is MY territory. She is practicing her moves as she swings violently around the womb at all times. And she is supremely impatient having already threatened to invade our space with an early birth.

I can already sense the competition beginning to heat up!

The following videos are from the hospital when Lucas and I invaded mommy and princess' space for a few hours the other day. As you can see, there is no dearth of entertainment options at a hospital!

The following two photos: One is breakfast, one is dinner
- every single day at the hospital. 

Can you guess which is which?

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Who Says Hospitals are Boring?

Look who we found!

 Mommy has been awol for almost two weeks now, hiding away from Lucas and I. We have spotted her during that time on FaceTime or Skype, but before today, we haven't had any confirmation of her exact whereabouts.

However now we know where she is - and that she has been misleading us all along!

Mommy is vacationing in a toddlers' paradise - without us! She has a bed that reclines and rises with the touch of some alluring buttons. She is surrounded by all sorts of advanced technological equipment that would be ever so much fun to play with. The elevators are glass and you could spend all day watching the fun compartments go up and down. She gets served three meals a day - to her bedside! And, someone comes to clean her room - every single day. Who could ask for anything more? Well, a bucket of champagne would be nice too, according to mommy.

Buttons!

Wheels!

Personally I think she is trying to get in some vacation before there are three of us to outnumber our parents and the amount of hands needed to juggle our needs. And yet she says she misses us and that she is bored out of her mind.

But after today I realized it is a ruse - hospitals are anything but boring. When we finally came to visit, we couldn't contain ourselves!

More buttons!

A bed with buttons!

Recline!

A remote control!

Incline!

Lights! Buttons! Equipment! Beeps! Nurses! Hallways! Wheelchairs instead of strollers!

Lucas and I were ecstatic and spent the first several minutes inspecting every crevice of mommy's room. We tried to unplug life support machines. We adjusted the bed - sometimes while either one of us were under it! The IV bag would make a great bath toy we noticed. The doctors' computers are on rolling desks - a double whammy of disaster waiting to happen. The  windowsills make perfect benches for sitting. The closets and drawers are perfect for our height. And the curtains make a great place to play peekaboo, or cuckoo as it is called in other parts of the world.

Free rides!

Lots of free rides!

We took rides in the glass elevators waving to anyone in the lobby who cared to watch. We used a wheelchair as a roller coaster up and down ramps. And we rearranged the furniture in the family room. Lucas and I also learned how to squeeze the alcohol from the bottles that are conveniently placed at the door of every room so that every part of us and the surrounding floors were well disinfected, perhaps better than ever!

It was a new adventure, a day of pioneering for both myself and Lucas. A span of two hours that left us spent of almost every ounce of toddler energy we have (our reserves are endless though). So we weren't too upset when we left, without mommy. I smacked her face and Lucas whimpered a little. But otherwise we were too tired to be upset for long. During the car ride home I napped and then when we got home we both continued in that vein, replenishing our reserves for the afternoon's activities.

And then we saw mommy again later ominously appearing on the iPad from her "spa." Hmph!

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Drama Baby Strikes Again!

Brief, albeit dramatic, I staged another daring visit to the ER

Me playing the part of the stoic yet depleted parent;
Abba playing the part of the carefree and happy baby

My performance was a little lackluster compared to last year. But still, no one had planned a random visit to the clinic, followed by a shoe-in entry from ER to hospital admittance on a random Sunday in January. And all this just 24 hours before Mimi was flying in to see me and Lucas.

At some point, I supposed my hospital drama routine was getting old, so I pulled the plug and got us released after just over 12 hours (including one awful night) in the ER. Seems I had a nasty lung infection which was creating problems for me but is now waning.

The doctors were more lenient this time with my oxygen grades and figured they would send me home to convalesce. That could have something to do with my blood-curdling screams between 1:45 and 4 a.m. that woke up EVERY SINGLE BABY in the ER, triggering a chain reaction of wailing infants, and grated on the nerves of exhausted and frazzled parents. But mostly I think they were just frightened by my Samson like threats to break down the pillars of my crib if someone didn't let me run rampant around the hospital.

And while I took mommy and abba on a tour of the finer clinics and ERs of Jerusalem, Lucas was treated to a one-on-one evening with Kathryn. He didn't fare too badly as you can see by his winning smile.

He learned his cute pose from me

Smooched!

Everyone is home now and Mimi has arrived safely into my open arms. All is well yet again.

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Have a Happy(ier) Hanukkah this Year :)

This year I learned to make my own sufganiyot!

We were all trying to remember what we did last year for Hanukkah and why it was we remember eating zillions of sufganiyot (Hanukkah donuts) but we don't remember encountering the traffic from the crowds all over the city and getting early days off from Shalva.

Oh yea - because we were in the hospital! Just a year ago we were escorted with flashing lights and sirens via ambulance to a place in the lovely rolling hill surrounding Jerusalem. We spent both Hanukkah and Christmas in the hospital and even Lucas' birthday!

See, in the hospital, happy volunteers came through the pediatric department every day with copious amounts of free donuts, which kept us distracted, occupied and sugared up. They lit candles every night at the central nurses station. I was visited on a daily basis by expert doctors, athletes, clowns and other entertainers. Of course Grandma and Grandpa (or Nene and Dede, my Armenian grandparents) kept us fed and happy, visiting several times from the other side of the city. And very importantly, Mimi and GongGong made a special visit all the way from New York!

Despite having RSV, invasive blood tests, an oxygen mask, a noisy O2 saturation monitor and awkward hospital pajamas, we actually had a great time! Well at least I did. I joined my friend Ephraim on the very same ward. And I was there (in the same building) to welcome Lucas, which would not have been allowed otherwise. I planned it perfectly.

But this being the one-year anniversary of all that, it means all sorts of holidays are converging upon us: We are at the tail end of Hanukkah, we are trying to conjure up some Christmas spirit and we have a most auspicious event right in between those two - Lucas' first birthday!

So this year we haven't had any such health concerns and we also got to experience Hanukkah at school. I learned how to make donuts and also put on a play for our mommies at Shalva. Here in the pictures you can see me leading the role of the Sabbath ritual. And in the videos which follow you can see me both in rehearsal where I dominated the choreography, and then in the real play where I was content to watch everyone else.

Sharing cookies with Ephraim

I read in Hebrew and English

(That was me executing my own personal rehearsal a few days before)

(There are many more videos where the videographer, mommy, waited in vain for me to perform. This was the closest I came to putting on a show for the assembled audience of mothers and siblings.)

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One Enchanted Evening

Always conspiring

When a baby blogger fails to write a blog post for one week, so much has happened and so much has been missed by the readers because every day is an adventure in the life of a baby. And thus is the case with me and the week that eluded us all.

First of all, Uncle and Aunt M&M came to visit me all the way from Virginia. After being inundated with family in New York for seven weeks, I was feeling a bit lonely and detached, so having family come to see me helped me ease back into my new old world even further.

The night Uncle Matt and Aunt Majda came to see me, Monday night, I treated them to a specialty of mine that they had not yet experienced: a near brush with a hospital visit! Yes sure enough I downward spiraled into feeling unwell that day and then ultimately just lying flat on the shoulder of anyone who held me.

All of my Israel friends and family have experienced my hospital epics. Then when we went to New York in March, I made sure to include my America family and friends to my "hospitable" theatrics. Only Uncle and Aunt M&M missed out on my exploits since they live in Virginia and my play headlined in NY. So I thought I'd give them a little taste of that.

Regrettably - or not - I wasn't able to muster the full drama to warrant an ER. We simply went to the clinic where my O2 levels were on the good side of "border line"and I tested positive for strep, thereby baffling the doctors again since modern science insists that babies under 2 or 3 (depending who you ask) never get strep. Since I'm so intent on breaking old and setting new records, I have defied the odds twice now.

A quite enchanting evening followed this two nights later when I, tag teaming with Lucas, assistant to the regional manager, decided to wake up every hour, alternating our crying times so as to keep mommy and abba running the entire night. Our great conspiracy worked. Perhaps what kept waking us was the smoke of the traditional wood burning of Lag B'Omer, the one Jewish holiday that would've been banned by Smokey the Bear. Perhaps it was residual drama of the near-ER visit. Perhaps no one will ever know because Lucas and I have a secret pact to keep it quiet.

Since I am being taught to share, I did share my strep throat with mommy. It was an advance Mother's Day gift.

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I {Heart} Anniversary

Today is an infamous anniversary: One year ago today my little chest and my even tinier heart were open on an operating table for a surgeon to work on. I was 8.5 months then. Just days ago I had an ultrasound, with the esteemed Prof. Rein, that showed the patch is just as perfect now as it was exclaimed to be then. I am doing fine.

So fine, in fact, that I have more energy than the average baby! I hardly need any sleep especially now that my ally, jet lag, is aiding me in the continuing War Vs. Sleep.

I am very grateful for my new and improved heart (well it is my original heart that is improved, not new) and for all of the opportunities it will afford me as I begin my very active stage of life. The AV canal surgery is a thing of the past for me, and my friends Hallel and Ephraim. Whew. Let's get on with life!

Here are some pre-op photos of me in the hospital gearing up for surgery:

Mommy is trying to evade my gaze as I had to fast
and, well, mommy reminds me of food!

Me throwing a pout mommy's way. That's what she gets for not feeding me.

Halfway into my hospital garb.

Now in the OR waiting room. 

See you later, Abba.

Despite the threat of my screams for lattes, mommy bravely
escorted me into the OR where she held my hand until I fell asleep.

My last pre-scar photo. We would reunite 6 hours later.

See GongGong keeping bedside vigil?
And don't worry, that is iodine, not blood on the gauze.

My trademark swirl has also survived open heart surgery.
See? Everything is returning to normal!

In case these photos don't show up, here is the link to pre-op pics and this is the link to post-op pics.

Here is a post from a day after the surgery last year that describes my Braveheart-esque resilience:

Day 2 Update

Babies are notorious for pulling their tubes out after an operation, the doctors said. We wake up or even just flutter into consciousness and immediately go to war on the foreign objects protruding from our bodies. It is a natural instinct for babies. Amazingly, adults don't fight these things and tend to make better patients, the doctors have alleged.


Thus they are trying to keep me sedated. Try as they may, being the valiant warrior that I am, I have opened my eyes a few times already. I quickly closed them though as all I saw were computer screens and a boring ceiling. As my aunt - Zia Em - recommended, I might as well get in all the sleep I can now so I can be awake ad infinitum once these tubes are extricated. And since the scenery is boring, and I keep missing my parents when I do awake, I might as well just get some shut eye.


Speaking of tubes, there are more tubes than there is baby. They are monitoring every possible function my little body can undertake. 


I have caused just a touch of concern to the doctors and my parents, though I am stable and all my vitals are looking good, there is a constant drip of blood still leaking from various orifices. That is a cause for continued prayer - that the bleeding stops. They aren't sure from where I am bleeding, but it is coming in drips and filling up a large measurement for a being my size. They are trying to clot my blood now so that it stops. They don't think it is something that will require more surgery and it could just be residual blood from the op, but it has to stop nevertheless.


I will keep you posted!


Oh, and sorry no photos, but my photographer/mother has decided I am not living up to my usual cuteness with all the tape and wires draped across me. 

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