Posts Filed Under Photos

Reality Check

posted by Momo Fali on January 16, 2014

Today was our annual reality check.

Before autism, eye surgeries, infections and hospitalizations; before kidney problems, hearing aids, choking and vomiting; before speech, occupational, physical and behavioral therapy. Before it all, there was his heart.

I was six months pregnant when he got his first echocardiogram. I waddled down the halls of Nationwide Children’s Hospital, then laid upon a table while a doctor looked at the right ventricle of his heart. It couldn’t have been much bigger than a peanut. I was decidedly bigger than one.

When his rare heart condition worsened two months later, they took him from my belly and whisked him away to Nationwide Children’s in an ambulance while I, again, laid upon a table. This time I was miles away and I didn’t get to see him until two days later when they let me leave the hospital for a few hours. It was Mother’s Day. It was fitting, but gut-wrenching.

They told us he would be sedated until he reached five pounds and then he would need open heart surgery. They were, thankfully, wrong. He came home three weeks later without that surgery. Almost 12 years later, though, it’s still looming over our heads.

So each year we trek back to those same halls and now it’s my boy who climbs onto the table. We are all stronger than we once were. He is 52 pounds of unstoppable energy. I am not. But, when I spy parents wearing “CARDIOLOGY” badges we smile, nod, and give each other mental fist bumps.

Echo

He still needs open heart surgery at some point, but we’re waiting. Stalling, if you will. Hoping, praying, and prodding the doctors to improve their technology so they won’t have to cut his chest open, spread his ribs apart and cut into his heart with a knife.

He had a heart catheterization when he was 13 months old and it was one of the easier surgeries he’s had. This is what we hope for. This is why we’re glad he’s small and grows slowly, so that his heart can keep up and each year that passes we know the doctors get closer to fixing this in a less invasive way. Today I chanted, “We want a heart cath! We want a heart cath!” If only my cheerleading could be enough to make it happen.

For today, though, he is stable and that’s really all we can ask for. That, and one more year until we have to walk those halls again.

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Day 14 – Rotten

posted by Momo Fali on November 14, 2013

This is blurry, but you can still get an idea of the beautiful bowl of goodness that sat before me. There was only one rotten one in the whole bunch.

photo 1(2)

Want to guess which one I bit into without looking?

photo(41)

Day 8 – Photo Friday

posted by Momo Fali on November 8, 2013

Autism: The Writing on the Wall. And the driveway.

photo(40)

Day 2 – Resemblance

posted by Momo Fali on November 2, 2013

Back at my first BlogHer conference in 2009, an afternoon of margaritas with friends turned into Melisa pulling a clown nose from her purse. and this happened.

BlogHer '09 clown

photo courtesy of the lovely PiperofLove

Since then it’s become a tradition for me to don a clown nose each year. Though my face is a little chubbier, my wrinkles a lot deeper and my dark circles…well…darker, the clown nose is a consistent feature in my annual photos.

So I probably shouldn’t have been surprised when my son dressed up as a clown for Halloween and my daughter took his picture only to have her phone ask this question.

clown

At next year’s conference, I’m wearing these pants.