We checked in at 7:00 am on Friday for Kevin's surgery. Since he would have to be put under I was not supposed to feed him anything after 4:00 am. I fed him at 2:30 then set an alarm for just before 4:00 so I could make sure he got one last feeding. He had no interest in waking up at 4:00 sand I was tired so I didn't push it. By the time they finally were ready to put him under, he had been without any food for probably 6 hours and was still all smiles...
Eventually they checked all his vitals and dilated his eye. We had to put him in little hospital jammies...
Isn't he cute? Dr. Larson puts a black mark over the eye so there are no mistakes.
They predicted an hour and a half for the surgery but it took longer. I tried not to worry about it because I trust Dr. Larson.
He came out of the surgery for a consultation with us and told us that he removed the cataract but could not get the lens to stay in place. Apparently his eye just isn't rigid enough yet. He attempted putting the lens in more than once and every time he put the eye back up to pressure the lens would fall back in his eye. Hence the reason it took longer.
Kevin eventually work up and I was standing there when he did. I fed him a bottle of glucose water then tried to nurse him. He was still a little too out of it to succeed nursing so I tried to pump without much luck. I decided to just give him some formula for the first time in his life so he could just be fed and happy. After eating he went back to sleep.
He was pretty lethargic after the surgery because the anesthesia take a full 24 hours to really ware off.
They sent us home with a steroid drop, an antibiotic drop, a dilating drop, and a cream for the night. I had these drops last time but this time I have to do even more often! It's insane. Every time I look at the clock I think Oh geese I forgot his ______ drop.
Saturday I met with the Dr. again just to make sure nothing looked strange. He is such a caring doctor. He admitted that he had been thinking of Kevin a lot over the last 24 hours trying to decide what's best for him. He genuinely wants to figure out what is best for every patient.
We are meeting again a week from Monday to discuss what's next.
Kevin will be back to wearing a lens. During this surgery he took a lot of measurements and found that Kevin has a pretty strong astigmatism. This is why his lens never fit very well. He will probably end up getting a hard contact lens that will be custom fit.
In the grand scheme of things, it's really not that big of a deal. As far as birth defects go, it's a pretty mild one. Kevin is a fabulous baby.
I actually got some money for participating in a birth defects national study ;)
1 comment:
Stacey and Ryan, haven't been home since last Thursday,but have been thinking about Kevin and praying for him. He is a darling child and really special spirit. I'm sad that he'll have to wear a hard contact. Never had to deal with that, except Kathey, in the olden days had hard contacts, and just couldn't get used to them. I'm sure they've improved a lot by now, and Kevin just seems to adjust so easily to whatever happens to him. We love him and all of you and hope to see you soon! G
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