Parker post surgeryWell, if this is a war, we won this battle. We’re putting today down in the win column.
The surgery went smoothly. It was one of, if not the longest couple hours of her parent’s lives (Jim and Nancy…I have no idea how you sat through Tim’s) but she came out without any complications. Now we spend the next couple of days waiting for her to get over the stress of surgery. She has been re-intubated, she’s on pain meds, her blood sugar level is raised. Generally it is a couple of steps back, in order to be able to take steps forward. Someone told others it was “open heart surgery”, I apologize if I left that opinion. They did not need to crack her chest open. Instead they went in through the back. If you lift your left arm, reach across your chest with your right arm and try to reach around your back your hand will hit about where they made the incision (unless your Michael Phelps and have freakishly long arms). They went in, carefully moved the lung aside, avoided the nerves and tied off the hole. Interestingly enough they just leave the tie in there. The doctor said it was a good thing we had done this, the PDA was the size of her aorta. This is what it should be in utero, but way too big for the outside world and means that it wasn’t shutting at all. I know that PDA stands for Patent Ductus Arteriosus, but after this “hole” experience we’re pretty sure it is just Pretty Darn Annoying.
As scary as this was for us it seems to have scared Parker as well. It has scared her eye open. When we saw her after surgery there was a small (really small….if you blow up the image in the picture you might be able to see it…we weren’t able to get a good picture of it) slit in her right eye lids. We saw her right before surgery (walked up with her) and it wasn’t there then. We’re hoping her eyes will open sometime later this week. Further updates as things develop.
Not wanting to be left out Emma Jane had a good day as well. We asked her to be good while we worried over Parker, and she dutifully listened. She had a nice boring night and day, looked really cute, and even tolerated two feeds. This is all great.
All in all, the Lord saw fit to show us his mercy in a tangible way today. Thanks be to God.
The surgery went smoothly. It was one of, if not the longest couple hours of her parent’s lives (Jim and Nancy…I have no idea how you sat through Tim’s) but she came out without any complications. Now we spend the next couple of days waiting for her to get over the stress of surgery. She has been re-intubated, she’s on pain meds, her blood sugar level is raised. Generally it is a couple of steps back, in order to be able to take steps forward. Someone told others it was “open heart surgery”, I apologize if I left that opinion. They did not need to crack her chest open. Instead they went in through the back. If you lift your left arm, reach across your chest with your right arm and try to reach around your back your hand will hit about where they made the incision (unless your Michael Phelps and have freakishly long arms). They went in, carefully moved the lung aside, avoided the nerves and tied off the hole. Interestingly enough they just leave the tie in there. The doctor said it was a good thing we had done this, the PDA was the size of her aorta. This is what it should be in utero, but way too big for the outside world and means that it wasn’t shutting at all. I know that PDA stands for Patent Ductus Arteriosus, but after this “hole” experience we’re pretty sure it is just Pretty Darn Annoying.
As scary as this was for us it seems to have scared Parker as well. It has scared her eye open. When we saw her after surgery there was a small (really small….if you blow up the image in the picture you might be able to see it…we weren’t able to get a good picture of it) slit in her right eye lids. We saw her right before surgery (walked up with her) and it wasn’t there then. We’re hoping her eyes will open sometime later this week. Further updates as things develop.
Not wanting to be left out Emma Jane had a good day as well. We asked her to be good while we worried over Parker, and she dutifully listened. She had a nice boring night and day, looked really cute, and even tolerated two feeds. This is all great.
All in all, the Lord saw fit to show us his mercy in a tangible way today. Thanks be to God.
5 comments:
Hello all,
Emma, well done today while Parker was in sugery. Thank you Dr. Gandhi for healing Parker, you get a shout out today. And most important, thanks be to God, for He is a merciful one. And the slit in Parker's eye, totally visible without magnification....awesome, just awesome. The marathon continues. God bless all four of you.
Mel
One of my (now 8th grade) Kindergarten Sunday School class' favorite song was
"My God is so GREAT
So STRONG and so MIGHTY
There's NOTHING my God cannot do!
The mountains are His'
The rivers are His;
The stars are His handiwork, too!
My God is so GREAT
So STRONG and so MIGHTY
There's NOTHING MY GOD CANNOT DO -
For YOU!"
AMEN!
Peace and blessings,
Mary
Yay for Parker! And praise be to God for seeing her through and guiding the dr's hands during this surgery!
We continually pray for your family. Hope you two have gotten some much needed rest too! Remember to take care of each other during all of this as well!
Love you guys.
Hey Mary Jane, Jason, Emma Jane, and Parker,
I am Beverly Wrenn that works with Kathy at DIT. We are all praying for your precious little babies. The prayer chain at our church, First Baptist in Mt. Holly, are praying as well. God is watching over all of you and the girls will get stronger every day. Please let me know if there is anything at all we can do for you.
Beverly
Jason,
Welcome to parenthood. You will find that there are many times that you are to sit and wait anxiously. When your kid goes to school for the first time or (even worse) the first time that they drive away in the car without you. Now that is really scary. You just need to take it a day at a time and as you already know and have said so many times - God's will be done.
About that NICU - we definitely were not allowed to take our shirts off 21 years ago.
Nancy
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