Alexander Gleason vs. The World

So, you may have noticed that over the last year and a half, calling my comic sporadic would be something of an understatement. Things have happened. Things have changed. Life happened. Quite literally.

In June of ’09, my wife Anna and I were blessed to bring our son Alexander into the world. It was a very exciting time for both us and our families. First child for us, first grandchild on both sides. This was going to be one spoiled baby.

When he was born, right away something wasn’t right. The doctor knew when he came out there was an issue right away. To put it as simple as possible, when you are born your skull is in a couple pieces to make sure there is enough room for the brain to grow. Two of his pieces had grown together and needed to be surgically separated. So at two months of age, they went in and separated the two pieces of his skull. When we were able to take him home…for some reason, it didn’t feel like things were done there.

Fast forward a little more than a year later. He had been having some health issues basically since the first surgery. We were seeing parades of specialists trying to find what was going on. We finally found that he had a hole in his heart, and a sizable one at that. One that needed to get operated on. One that did get operated on last week. And last Saturday - the first day of the New Year – we were able to bring him home.

I can not put into words the feeling that I have right now. I don’t think I really realized it before but 18 months ago, life and feeling of any sort just stopped. Everything had to be set aside while we were trying to help our son. We were never able to bring him home at a point where we felt he was healthy and ok. Although he has a long recovery ahead of him and a lot of catching up to do, I feel like this is us bringing him home for the first time. It’s the first time that we are bringing him home healthy. Once we got home, I felt an enormous weight was lifted off…and I don’t think I have ever had a feeling as good as this. Well, except maybe making him in the first place. But this is a close second.

We are both very thankful everyone at Children’s Hospital in Wisconsin for taking such great care of him. We could not have asked for a single thing better for our son than what we got there. If one of your New Years’ resolutions is to make more charitable donations, please visit The Children’s Hospital website to make a donation. I can’t see anyone else doing a better job with kids then they do there.

For my part, I am looking forward to getting back to normal things. I am especially looking forward to 52 comics a year.

Kevin