Thursday, June 30, 2011

Surgery

After about a year of check ups and insurance approvals, Malakai was finally able to have surgery.

Background info:
Just a little background information for those who don't know! When Malakai wasn't even a year old our pediatrician sent us to the eye doctor because he noticed that Malakai's eyes weren't opening properly.

Dr. P (the eye doc) wanted to wait until he was a year and a half to double check. After the 1.5 appointment, we started the process. Dr. P recommended that we see a different doctor within their practice because he did a lot more of these types of surgeries. Dr. B saw him around September of last year.

The first surgery that he recommended was really invasive and not a permanent one. They would tie Malakai's eyelid up to his eye brow muscle with a string, under the skin. Then his eyelids would open farther via his brow muscle. The major disclaimer on this surgery is that the string is only temporary and at any point one of them could break. At that point, depending on his age, they would do another surgery. This one they would replace the string with a tendon from his leg, to make it much more permanent.

God had a much better surgery for us!
After waiting, we had yet another appointment with Dr. B. This time Malakai understood what "Look up here" meant and was able to respond to the best of his ability. Dr. B said that the muscle was working more than what they thought originally :)
Dr. B recommended a better surgery. I could give you the medical name for it, but I don't know how to spell it :) Basically, it is an eye lift :) (not really, but that is what we call it for fun)

With this surgery, they cut across the eyelid, detach the muscle, roll it back and reattach it. Leaving the remaining muscle attached to make adjustments if needed. Simply put, they shorten the muscle that lifts the eyelids. This surgery can be reversed if there are any complications. While the doctor is doing the surgery he has to guess at how short to make the muscle. Dr. B has been doing this for many years and said that he was really good at guessing :) He can go back in and make adjustments if needed. Obviously, we don't want the have to make any adjustments!

Malakai the night before the surgery:
As you can see in the next couple pictures Malakai's eyes are barely open. This is a normal look for him!

The Day of Surgery!
Our long awaited day started extremely early! Eric and I got up around 5 to have breakfast and get completely ready. Malakai wasn't aloud to eat or drink so we wanted to take him right from bed to the car! We then had to make the 40 minute drive to the surgical center. Malakai is quite the trooper! He did not complain one bit!
He thought the lion pj's were cool too!! We actually had to wait until the sedative kicked in before they took him back. They wanted him to have the sedative because then he wouldn't remember even leaving the room. This is just in case they had to make any adjustments, they didn't want him to be scared next time! So after a few silly moments with him, he went right into the nurse's arms and they carried him back. (The scariest thing ever!)

(We didn't take any pictures with our camera until we got home because of the flash. We did take a couple with our phones, but I don't know how to get them on here.)

Right after surgery they let him wake up and then brought us back. He was screaming for us! I instantly started crying. Seeing my little baby all wrapped up, with his eyes WIDE open, was something I NEVER thought would happen. Now his crying and being in pain didn't help any either. Since the surgery was just completed, he was literally crying blood. (Yup, it was that nasty!) I tried to hold onto him, but he was so strong and was trying to sit up (which he wasn't suppose to do because he had his IV in and wasn't fully awake). I ended up giving him to Eric. The room that we were in was really little and with the three of us and a couple nurses in it, it soon became super hot. I told Eric I needed to get out of the room to get some fresh air. I didn't even make it to the door before I started seeing black spots! The nurses sat me down with some kind of smelling salts to keep me from passing out!! I couldn't believe that was happening to me!
After I started feeling a little better, I left the room and went outside. I called some family to tell them that everything had gone well! This was all I could stomach to do at this point!

They let Malakai sleep for about another 1/2 an hour. When he woke up this time, he was A LOT more composed (and so was I)! They let him drink some grape juice and he ate a few crackers.
At this point they let us check out and head home! Right as we were leaving Dr. B popped his head in the room, just to peak at his eyes and he said they looked right on (meaning hopefully we won't have any adjustments)!

I was on driving duty because Eric said the last thing he needed was me passed out in the back seat! They had also warned us that the medicine that they gave Malakai could make him throw up (yup, another thing I'm not that great at handling and another reason for me to drive!) So, with the driver's window all the way down, we headed home. I really tried to stay in my own world and not look in the rear-view mirror (not because I'm dangerous like that but because I didn't want to pass out while driving!) We got about 10 minutes into the drive and I heard a very odd sound coming from the back. Instantly, I prayed that the van wouldn't smell like vomit. Well, not even a couple moments later that prayer was answered. The grape smell from his juice filled the van! After his little vomiting, he fell right to sleep.

We safely made it home and Malakai desperately wanted to eat. We didn't know how well his stomach would handle food, so animal crackers it was! He and I cuddled up on the couch with a bag of crackers and watched the Cars movie.


This is the first picture of Mommy and Malakai with his new eyes :)
We are all in such amazement at how different he looks!
I think I covered the day! Feel free to leave any questions in the comment part!

Wednesday, June 29, 2011