Home

We are home!  I am so glad that surgery is over.  Julia was a champ.  She always is - such a brave little trooper.  Even though she was starving, she was great.  So here is the rundown:

We found out last Tuesday (quite unexpectedly) that Julia needed another surgery.  After some crazy scheduling, we found out it would be today (Thursday).  So last night she could not have any formula after 2 am and nothing at all after 4 am.  I tried to wake her at 3:45 to have some pedialyte but she refused.  My Julia is headstrong, and if she isn't hungry, she will NOT eat.

So we left the house at 5 am so we could be at the hospital by 6:15.  We got there, got checked in and Julia was weighed, measured and changed into a gown.

We then had to answer the same questions over and over and talked with the surgeon, the nurse practicioner, the anestheiologist and the fellow.  They put a mark over her right eye to make sure they did surgery on the correct eye!

Then it was time to take her away.  They would give her some gas to go to sleep, then do the iv, insert a breathing tube and the surgery.  It is so hard handing over your baby.

Then you wait and wait and wait.  You check the clock and pace and think and pray.  Finally, after what feels like an eternity, the surgeon came in and said that everything went fine.  He said that they were able to get out the entire membrane, open the pupil and her eyes look great.  He did tell us that he wants to be more "aggressive" with the drops to try and prevent this from happening again (think every 2 hours!).  Then we waited for a little bit more and the phone in our room rang and they told us to go to recovery.

In recovery, Julia was still sleeping and hooked to monitors and had an iv.  She looked pitiful.  When I picked her up she became really agitated and was rubbing her eyes and fussing.  They gave her pain meds in her iv and by mouth.  She was able to rub off her eye shield so they had to retape it.  I fed her some pedialyte and we were able to walk back to our room in the Same Day Surgery area. 

She was still very agitated and fussy.  She then projectile vomited all the pedialyte.  It was awesome (and by awesome I mean disgusting!).  She calmed down after that.  So we sat and let her rest.  The nurse ordered some arm splints to keep her from rubbing her eye shield.  After sitting for about an hour, the nurse took out her iv and we were able to go home.  So we loaded up and brought Julia home. 

She slept most of the day.  She had lots of bottles in the afternoon, probably to make up from not eating all morning.  I am just so glad that it is over!  I appreciate all the prayers from everyone!  Hopefully it is a long, long time before we have to do this again!

I am still worried because it has been about 3 weeks without patching because of the lost contact and then surgery.  I am not sure when we can put in a contact again and start patching.  Part of me hopes it is soon so we can start forcing that eye to work and another part of me is enjoying not having to worry about the contact or the patch!