Jake had Eye Surgery and a big milestone!

We got tossed a curve-ball yesterday when we learned that Jake had to go in for emergency eye surgery. I will back-track a bit to get everyone caught up...


Back when Jakey was born they told us that it is pretty common for preemies to have eye problems because their eyes are not ready to see light and this causes their eyes to require glasses. They also went over the possibility with us that Jake might require eye surgery to save his eyes. What happens is that when a preemie as small as Jake is born they require a ton of Oxygen to stay alive, but this oxygen also cause eye problems. This was one of those life or death decisions Rory and I had to make the first week of his life. We knew the ventilators were necessary but we also knew it could damage his eyes and obviously we chose to go ahead with the ventilators anyway. 


What happens is the oxygen causes the blood vessels in his eyes to overgrow and soon they start growing crazy and not in the right places. I try to imagine it like they are weeds. Nine weeks ago, eye doctor, Dr. Carver started looking after Jake and checking him every two weeks to check the progress of his eyes. At first they seemed great, just premature. So he would come back every 2 weeks as long as they were looking OK. Then 3 weeks ago he noticed that they were starting to deteriorate. He declared they were stage one for retina detachment and that he would come back in one week to check if they had gotten worse or stayed the same. Up until Thursday night at 10:00 they were just stuck at stage one and seemed pretty good. But Thursday night we got the call that suddenly Jake's eyes had deteriorated so quickly that he was stage 3 and needed emergency surgery in the morning. The blood vessels were encroaching under and around the retina and they needed to be stopped immediately so they didn't detach it. 


Thankfully Dr. Carver was able to squeeze Jake into his day and Jake's surgery was a big success. Dr. Carver used a laser to zap each blood vessel to stop it in it's course and cause the eye to stop producing a secretion that causes the vessels to overgrow. He zapped the left eye over 2200 times and the right eye just about 2100 times. All through the surgery Jake was given a medication that paralyzed him. As you can imagine one small move with the laser in the eye could be really bad. This was a bit scary to handle but everyone assured us that it was common to use and that he would be fine. They also dosed him up majorly with pain medication. 


This surgery was not without negatives though. Because of the surgery Jake lost most of his peripheral vision. He shouldn't really be affected by this because he will not know what it is like to have peripheral vision so it should just seem normal to him. Also he will never be able to be a pilot because peripheral vision is mandatory, so we will not be focusing his dreams towards airplanes :o).  The Dr.'s assured us that he will still be able to play sports and drive a car and do everything else normal, he will just learn how to compensate for not having that sight. He was able to save 70% of Jake's eye sight though which we are very grateful for. Jake was days away from being permanently blind!


Jakey-boy keeps receiving one blessing after another after another and we couldn't be more grateful! He is such a little trooper. After his surgery they said he would really be out of it for a few days and not want to move around much but just like he always does he seems to surprise everyone. The night of the surgery Jake was awake and moving around when he shouldn't have been and already he realized that the dumb ventilator tube was back down his throat and his first thought and intention became how to get that tube out of his mouth. He is really funny. From the day he was born he has hated those tubes in his mouth. He should think they are just normal... but not Jake, he wants them out NOW!


Today is Jake's 3 Month Birthday, we weren't able to hold him because of all that happened yesterday and we really couldn't talk to him much because the nurses don't want him wiggling around, so hopefully we will have a better time celebrating with him tomorrow, but Rory was able to make Cinnamon rolls for all of the staff and we sort of celebrated with them. 


We couldn't have gone through any of this without the wonderful Nurses, Respiratory Therapists's and Dr.s there at the hospital. I love you all!!! Thank you Thank you Thank you for saving my baby!