daily check up

With Max physically attached to me for most of the first year of his life, it was easy to check on him. Most of the time I was either wearing him in a sling or holding him on my left hip. When he was a year old, I couldn't fully straighten my left arm from holding him constantly. I slept with him in his room on a futon. The only time he had to sleep without me had been in the PICU. I could not sleep without hearing his breathing and knowing he was okay.

I dreaded putting him in his crib alone. It seemed like jail. Willing to accept a lifetime of sleep problems to not relinquish a minute of holding him, I waited. A year after his heart surgery when his cardiologist said he was doing great, I finally put him in there. And he was fine. I, however, was not. For months, I tiptoed up two or three times a night to check on him, feel his heart beat, check his breathing.

Now he sleeps in his own bright red fire truck twin bed. At bedtime after we read our stories, he holds my face with both his sweet little hands and says: "You sleep me, mommy."

"Yes, I sleep you, Max," and kiss him on his kissy spot right in the middle of his forehead,  making sure the temperature of his skin feels normal with my lips when I kiss him, that his brow is not damp with sweat from heart failure.  And thus begins his daily check up.

Then I lay next to him as his eyes close and watch his breathing. It should be comfortable and slow, not faster that a breath every two clicks of his Humpty-Dumpty clock. He has wheezed a few times, so I make sure his breathing out is not too much longer than his breathing in. I watch to make sure his nose is not flaring out, that his breaths are easy.

When I am sure he is asleep, I lay my hand on his chest and feel where his freight train of a murmur used to be. Sometimes I feel the memory of his murmur, but if I wait long enough it begins to just feel like a normal child's heartbeat. I make sure its not too hard, fast or irregular.

And in my mind I review each day. When I tickled him, was his belly soft, his liver normal? Yes. When I took off his socks was there any indentation showing edema? No. Was his color good? Yes.

But tonight as I went through these customary steps, he kept rubbing his left eye, the good eye, as he fell asleep. He didn't rub his right eye at all.

Why is he only rubbing his left eye? Does that mean his left eye hurts? What if the process in his right eye could start to affect his left eye, his good eye? Is he rubbing his left eye because it hurts? What if this gets worse and he goes completely blind?

And then he rolled over on his side and I saw that he was holding his brand new Finn race car tightly in his right hand.