Half time

first food and 120-year-old spoon, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

Dear Silas,

Six months ago today you were born. Imagine that.

Six months ago today I was trying to rest up for the surgery. Trying not to think about all the things that had been heaped upon my shoulders in the last weeks of the pregnancy.

Six months ago today I was wondering what I was in for. What you were in for.

Some of those questions have been answered and some are still a mystery.

Thus far I've found you to be shy, and funny and sweet. You are quick with a smile, and eager to see the world. You are content to watch, and yet you reach out, too.

Your first bites of food were enthusiastic. You seemed ready to chew and eager to try more offerings from your great grandmother's spoon.

Watching you grow and change, giggle and laugh; watching you hide coyly in the folds of the sling, peeking out and smiling all the same, I've come to call you turtle. I hardly remember those days of worry about your wonky kidney. Only the doctors' appointments are the reminders that something about you is not the same as others.

And today, as we slogged through sloppy streets, parking on snowbanks and walking precariously through half-shoveled walkways into the hospital, I fully expected a stellar report.

You were brave as the ultrasound technician waved her wand over your right - perfectly formed - kidney. You batted your eyes and tried to help by grabbing the corded device.

I should have known by the way you were carrying on about being turned onto you right side so she could get pictures of your left kidney that all was not as well as it seemed.

... You decimated the paper sheet on the examining table at the urology office later that morning. You we silent and intent on crinkling every square inch.

But I was staring like a deer in headlights when the PA explained that while the hospital marked the pictures as "UNCHANGED" (The same determination of two months ago) she had conferred with the doctor and they concluded that if anything, the images looked slightly worse.

The next step, she said, was a lasiks renalgram (which I later learned is a LASIX RENOGRAM and only sounds like renalgram when they throw the terms at you fast).

This is a test in which they will insert and IV and inject radioactive isotopes into my baby boy and watch how the glowing dye gets pissed out.
This torture procedure will take three hours. He will be strapped onto a board, have a catheter and be in some radioactive room, similar in appearance to an MRI chamber, or so I'm told by some folks I know who's kids have been through the same test.

So as I stood there blinking and feeling as if I would do anything to switch places with my tiny, chortling son I sad nothing and accepted that this was the best thing to do ... that this is the next course of action ... that this is what is called for ...

And I made the appointment.

Then I realized, four hours later while I was at work and you were calmly lying in my lap watching the coworkers go by, that I don't really know what the rush is for something that is so slight one of two doctors thought was unchanged.

So I called to ask the questions I should have ask when I was busy being caught in the bright lights of fear and wishing away ...

What are our options? Can we wait a few months and do another ultrasound?

But they were busy, so I had to leave a message.
I may be slow on the uptake, little man, but I am learning at a turtle's pace.


Love,

Mama