Thursday, November 29, 2012

Early Risers

Axel, New York, 2012


This morning, we got up before sunrise to take Axel to midtown for an MRI on his cyst. The light was amazing, and driving into the city I couldn't help but feel very lucky to be seeing it, even though taking your child to a hospital is never something you really want to be doing.

A month or so ago, we met with a pediatric neurosurgeon. Even though Axel's cyst is most likely superficial and mainly a cosmetic issue, because it's on his head, the neurosurgeon it is.

Our doctor seems great and very capable. You know how at work, you sometimes joke, "We're not curing cancer," or "We're not saving babies"? Well, yeah, these guys are in fact saving babies every day.

He was very reassuring and recommended we remove the cyst around the time he is is 6 months old. But to schedule that surgery, we need the MRI. Today was our attempt to do it without sedation. Unfortunately our sound asleep, well fed, and tightly swaddled baby woke up screaming as soon as the machine was turned on. Which means we are back to square one.

Afterwards, he looked momentarily worried, but was back to naps and high spirits as soon as we got home.

For us it's a little more complicated. Even though we've known about Axel's cyst since he was a 16-week-old fetus, and we've known he would likely need surgery for it at some point, the logistics of the here and the now are tough. But we trucked it back to Brooklyn, dosed ourselves up on coffee, and are still feeling very lucky.

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