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September 14, 2006

You've got a hernia, baby!

As you may have guessed, I like to get out and explore. To do that, I often go to places where vehicles or ATVs or bikes or for that matter, anything with wheels would not be able to go. I walk, and sometimes I walk far.

And how I've taken this ability for granted.

It's amazing to see my seven-and-a-half-month-old daughter in her quest for mobility. It's only been in the past few days that you could really say she's been crawling. Before that, she struggled along in a frustrating commando-style crawl that did a better job of moving her backwards and polishing the floor than it did of letting her get from A to B.

She's not pleased in any way with her crawling, though. She's not crawling to people or to toys (although she has made attempts to eat both the dog and cat's food); she's crawling towards anything that will allow her to stand. When she's found a waiting hand or solid piece of furniture, she'll pull herself up into a standing position and that's when she'll smile. Surveying the world from her dizzyingly-high 71 centimetre vantage, she will then take a deep breath and step.

Even though she has less balance while standing than a Spring Break party-goer who just shotgunned a keg of beer, sometimes she'll let go, trusting that she'll be able to walk like the rest of the bipeds in the house.

More often than not, she'll land on her diaper-padded butt or, sometimes, hammer the floor with the back of her head or, sometimes, do a face-plant into whatever happens to be in front of her. If there is crying, it never lasts long. Within minutes she's back to her determined mission: walk.

It seems so easy for those of us who can do it that we don't even think about it. But, oh! How much effort it seems to take my little girl! And she's so determined to do it!

Maybe that's how she gave herself a hernia.

I was taking a late nap, preparing for a late night after receiving some last-minute work, when Fawn woke me up, asking me to look at a large lump near Jade's groin. I didn't see anything, but after the baby stood, holding Fawn's hands for balance, something seemed to grow from inside her. I thought it might be a hernia right from the start, but I wasn't sure. We decided to play it safe and, even though we knew that there wasn't anything that they would do tonight if it was, indeed, a hernia, we decided to go to Emergency to have it checked.

We arrived around 19:00 and left around 23:00, our suspicions confirmed.

So what do you do with a seven-and-a-half-month-old who just wants to stand, but can't because her intestine will slide out between her stomach muscles? Hopefully we'll find out tomorrow when we meet with the baby doctor.

3 comments:

Meandering Michael said...

A point of clarification for those who might be wondering, the "baby doctor" is not a doctor who happens to be a baby, but is one who specializes in treating (and delivering) babies.

Speaka said...

I appreciate the clarification! Hope all goes well at the doctor's visit.

Anonymous said...

Poor Jade. We'll call tonight to see how things went with the doctor (who's not a baby).
Give Jade a hug from me!