We have been taking baby steps in experimenting with exposing Cole the eczema guinea pig to water and seeing how his skin handles water exposure for longer than 5 minutes of bath water.
We were hopeful after a visit to the neighborhood pool. We were in for about an hour and nothing was showing up and even that night. We spoke too soon. The next morning it was head to toe eczema, but the good news it wasn't near as bad as we thought it would be. To give you an idea how mild it was even though it was from head to toe, we took him back again, but then we gave him a break to get his skin cleared up completely.
July 16th we headed to see Dr. Bensky, Cole's cardiologist. Everyone was so impressed with Cole's growth since he was last there. They checked the usual, O2 level, weight, height, and how his heart sounded. While we were there they wanted to do an echo to make sure everything was flowing good and looked like it was suppose to at this stage. Everything checked out really well. Dr. Bensky was really happy with the way Cole's heart looked and sounded! He did say because Cole is such a big boy and continues to grow so well that we are looking at his 3rd surgery in 6-9 months. This was similar to how it lead up to having the second surgery done earlier than planned because of Cole's size. Cole being bigger than expected at this stage is a good thing. At no time do we want Cole to go back through everything for a 3rd time, but in some ways it is better so that we can have it behind us. At first it looked like the next surgery would be closer to 3 years old, but since this is not an optional choice for Cole we are glad it will be sooner than later!
Sometimes we look at this big blue eyed, bigger than life personality, little package that is a big miracle and we get possessive and can't imagine our lives without him and don't want our lives without him, but then God reminds us that none of these precious babies are ours, they are only on loan as gifts for whatever time God decides. When we realize they were never ours to begin with, we just get to enjoy that God thought enough of us to give us these amazing little people to fill our lives with a love and joy that is unbelievable and unmatched in any way! Cole has made us appreciate friends, family and life even more through this journey of having a heart baby and in all of it we can actually thank God for exactly how he made Cole.
