A first birthday retrospective

Hard to believe Ira's a year old. Mind you, picking up the little wriggler, he's starting to feel all of his hard-earned 12 months. I spoke at the weekend for the Orthopedic Nurse's Conference about our experiences with Ira and how he (and we) cope with his surgeries and recoveries – I'll put the presentation up as a post.

In the process of composition, it gave me an opportunity to go back through the last year in photographs, I thought I'd share some with you. .

Day One in the Neonatal unit



My colleague Gareth Barlow did the bone carving, Tiki Toa Puaki – Emerging Warrior – "What emerges from great challenges, are great warriors".
You can see more of his great carvings at his website Rongomau





First operation recovery to dilate his nasal passages at Starship hospital, Auckland















They sent a probe into his skull to check the pressure on the brain and narrowly avoided getting a shunt to drain spinal fluid – a major relief.



First syndactyly release on his hands.



Grandma bakes, ices and pipes [same animal decorations from my first]



Second head surgery inserting springs in back to let the brain grow out not up









What a year. These two make it feel like a dream – a beautiful one at that.