MAYbe Everybody Says It Because It's True

"Oh, but little kids heal so fast.  It's amazing."

You may have heard this.  I certainly have, and I've never had reason to doubt it.  I've also heard lots of stories in which young whippersnappers have heart surgery and are up and about the next day.  I believed these stories, but my mind filed them in the "anecdotal evidence" category.  It seemed presumptuous to count on such a thing happening in our case.

Well, today Willem ate a bit at every meal.  He drank a lot of milk.  He came off all the monitors.  His chest tube was removed (poor kid--I would have totally freaked if I were anticipating that, and he was none too thrilled), he went for a first walk, and he had his first poop.  

After that first little walk down the hall, he found his feet and wanted to go to the play room.  He was all OVER the place, playing like nothing was wrong.  He bent over to retrieve toys, dragged an enormous basket of dinosaurs across the room, and had to be told repeatedly that he was not allowed to climb a bench.  I had to tell him NOT TO RUN.

Now the only hardware he's left with are an IV in his hand (not hooked up to anything most of the time) for administering a few medicines and the two slim pacemaker wires that are lightly attached to the surface of his heart.  These are always put on as a precaution, and they are the last thing to be removed.

There has been talk of Willem possibly going home tomorrow, not that Shaun and I are quite sure that WE'RE ready for that.  So, yeah, little kids do heal so fast.  It's amazing.