Reprieve

Monday Quinn's heart surgeon came to check his heart a final time to see if it had any chance of self recovering. And for that day at least, Quinn declined to have another operation. To every one's surprise, his heart was self maintaining and he has been off of a pacemaker for two days now. Over that time his heart rhythm has improved to a normal rate.

Maybe Quinn could sense the overly familiar sensation of doctors looking down on him wanting to cut him open again, and forced his own heart to beat. I don't know.

As of today, scheduled surgery for a pacemaker is off the table, and the doctors are going to continue monitoring his heart. Every so often his heart will skip a beat, and when he gets angry his heart rate jumps around erratically. But so far he has taken the path of recovery. I'm doing my best not to get too excited. His heart still needs to improve to have a pacemaker completely out of the equation. I'm still waiting and hoping for the time when he can begin drinking all his mothers milk she's been saving for him.

Quinn now has the strength to thrash about pretty good when he cries. I find it hard to watch over long periods, because I can tell by his type of cries and body language that he is still in much pain. But it's the only exercise and release he gets. The upside is he wears himself out and sleeps pretty good.

I thought I'd take a video of him sleeping peacefully.

I can't deny how great it was hearing the news that Quinn has the ability to have a heartbeat of his own. One that is becoming more normal by the day. I'm trying to stay off the edge of my seat here, but Quinn loves to surprise. Steph remained hopeful all along that his heart would recover. But when his doctors kept telling me the probable reality was that his heart was too damaged to beat on it's own, I learned to accept it. Well son, you've got me back in a holding pattern. So good luck. What ever happens, better times are still on the way.