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[aadler]

Our granddaughter Ruby turned 9 months old recently, which occasioned another follow-up medical check.

When she was first born, she was diagnosed with a small hole in the heart (more specifics here). It wasn’t causing her problems at the time, apparently occurs once in every 2,000 births, and often as not closes on its own as a baby matures. Ruby continued to grow and develop normally, all periodic checkups showed no issues …

… and this most recent one found that the matter had in fact resolved itself. Our son Kevin called us last night, and I took the opportunity to make sure I had understood properly, whereupon he confirmed that, yes, our youngest granddaughter now has a normal — and normally-functioning — heart.

I wasn’t really worried, but Susan and I had made that one of the points in our daily Rosary prayers, and now we can transition into thanks instead.

Susan would really like to be back in China for Ruby’s first birthday. Personally, I think we need to spend more time recovering financially from the last such trip (plus, while Kevin was visiting us in January, we gave him $5,000 to help cover the cost of a live-in nanny, which had done a lot to help Mei‑li avoid the postpartum depression she’d had to deal with following Amber’s birth). Susan usually goes along with my recommendations when it comes to finances, but then I’m putting more effort lately into doing things to support her happiness, so we’ll just have to see how it turns out.

Meanwhile, satisfied with how things now stand.