Eye Surgery and a Funny Story

Well, tomorrow came and I was up at the hospital bright and early. I watched him go. He was back in now time and when he came back his eyes were really red and puffy which they told me is normal. He came off the vent at 5:30 that morning. I don’t remember why I couldn’t get up there that morning but, I didn’t get to see him until the evening. He was dressed and looking good and he was happy to see me. I just couldn’t stop looking at him. I loved being able to see his face. All of it. He still had the NG tube in. Which is the tube that goes through his nose into his stomache so that he could feed. He was getting approximately 17cc’s an hour up until his bowel surgery which was to be the next Wednesday.

Ok, a funny story. When they started him on feeds, they started him on pedialyte at 1cc an hour. This is called trophic feeds. Just to check out if he could tolerate something in his stomach I didn’t understand the process at the time. I figured that he would drink a bottle. I didn’t understand it would be hooked up like an IV and it would be sent down his NG. Until that time the NG was used to suck stuff out of his stomach not put it in. I was sitting there with Stacy and the whole time we are trying to figure out when they were going to come to feed him. I mean we were there for a few hours. And never did we see a bottle. Vicky was his nurse. She was on nights at the time. She spent the whole time we were there in the isolation unit working with another baby. We just couldn’t figure out why she didn’t come feed him. I think we finally stopped another nurse or the intern and asked them and they explained it all to us. We felt a little bit like dufusses when we finally knew how he was fed. I mean seriously, I was getting mad that my baby was being neglecting and not getting his feed. We laughed about that one.

Joyous Frustrated moment.

They had tired once in Cincinnati to take him off of the vent. He was on C-pap which is basically oxygen with some pressure. But, he didn’t tolerate it well. So, they put him back on the vent.

Well, he came back to Dayton and it was just mostly watching him grow. I spent Thanksgiving with him and we had a blast. I found out after thanksgiving that they were going to make plans to reconnect his bowel. He had a double barrel so, it was just a matter of reconnecting it. And from the surgeons mouth not mine just stitch and let go. They would run water through it and making sure nothing leaked. Then we would wait for bowel sounds and his first bowel movement. That is when we would really know if everything was fixed or not.


But, before that happened miracle of all miracles happened. At 7:15, November 27, 2006, JT pulled his vent out. He was breathing on his own. No nose cannulas. No oxygen. Just breathing like you and me. He decided that he wanted it no more. He was on the vent for 13 weeks, to the day except for the few hours on C-pap in Cincinnati. And it was another special day. It didn’t dawn on me until later that day that it was his original due date. I rushed up there to see him and seen my baby’s face. It was awesome. I was so afraid he wasn’t breathing right. I kept asking Patty the nurse if she was sure that he was ok. I mean I was totally exstatic that he was off but, when you get used to one thing and then something else happens. (which happens a lot in the NICU). It just scares you. I was holding him and he had a Brady which is where his heart rate goes down. Come to find out I had his head tucked to far in and had to relax and let his head fall back. That was scary. I remember I had Mikayla up there with me and we had the greatest time. We gave JT all kinds of kisses. She could touch him actually touch him with out me feeling like she would rip his vent out. She was just two at the time. Now, I was still worried about the IV’s because he had a lot of them. But, we had fun with the kisses and we read him a whole bunch of books and he just interacted with us and it was just awesome is the only word to describe it. I never thought I would see the day that think would come out and he would be breathing on his own.

I found out also that he would be having eye surgery the next day. He had ROP which is Retinopathy of Prematurity. This is where the retinas are separating from the back of the eye. It is seen mostly in preemies that have been on oxygen long term. He would have to be vented again. He would also have a paralytic again they didn’t want him to be able to move his eyes. This surgery was a laser surgery but, surgery none the less. He wouldn’t be off the vent but basically 24 hours when he would have to go back on again. I was scared that he would go on it and not come back off. We had freedom from one thing and I didn’t want to loose it. There were a lot of tears that day. Happy rejoicing tears, frustrated tears and scared tears. I went home and just prayed. Prayed that everything would turn out alright, and that he would come off the vent in no time.