Aiden & Jackson: Days 58 - 63: So Much To See!

Updated Tuesday, 12/7 evening.

This past week has been pretty busy. Both boys had their third eye exams on Friday morning, which was something we were anxious about finding out the results of. They had been watching Aiden's eyes closely, since he was Stage 1-2 the previous week for Retinopathy of Prematurity. Nearly all preemies born before 30 weeks gestation develop RoP, but in 80% of the cases, it resolves on its own, and the eyes go on to develop normally. In the other 20%, laser surgery is required to prevent the developing blood vessels from further abnormal growth. Once the disease gets to Stage 3+, surgery is required. Aiden's right eye was Stage 3+ moderate, and the left eye was Stage 3+ mild. He had surgery Friday night. We heard some folks talking, and learned that this procedure is not very common, and it is typically performed on babies closer to 37 or 38 weeks gestation, not a 34 weeker. Either way, the surgery was 3 hours long, and he was transported to the 'P' procedures pod where he was prepped and readied. He had to be re-intubated since he was going to be paralyzed for the procedure, and was given an IV since he was TPN. We had our consult with the eye surgeon, who by the way was an extremely attractive Indian woman. This was her 12th procedure of the year, and first one at our hospital in nearly 1.5 years. That's how infrequent it is performed. She went over the disease and what she was going to do to correct Aiden's eyes. If the disease continued to progress without intervention, his retinas would detach and he would be blind. The laser's job is to cottorize the blood vessels that had grown abnormally to prevent further growth. Because of this, the area of the eye that is affected controls the periheral vision. Aiden will not have peripheral vision and will most likely require glasses. Let's weigh the pros with the cons for a second. I'll take the glasses and no peripheral vision over blindness or PVL (brain damage) any day. So, my point is, he never had peripheral vision, so to him this is normal, and he will learn to compensate for not having it. Christie and I stayed overnight at the hospital Friday into Saturday. The surgeon said the procedure could not have gone better, which was a huge relief for us. She will follow up with both boys this Thursday to check the expected regression of Aiden's RoP, and the status of Jackson's. Let's hope Jackson's regresses on its own so we're not going through the same thing this Friday for him.

Aiden has recovered well, and part of the protocol for any baby undergoing stress is a treatment of steroids. As expected, they are turning out to decrease the inflammation in his lungs along with the rest of his body, and he is currently rocking the CPAP on the same settings as his brother, who was 3+ weeks ahead of Aiden on CPAP. If you recall last week, Aiden was having some labored breathing on CPAP, and so they were watching him closely and a possibility was to be placed back on the vent, or receive sterroids to speed up lung development. We were not keen on the sterroid idea since there are potential side effects that most parents wouldn't want to see. The dosage he received to treat surgery was not as high as the dosage to get him off the vent would have been, but low or high dosage, they are helping his lungs as well, and we are happy. You have weigh the pros and cons - breathing is absolutely necessary, and the side effects are not 100% proven.

I will update this post with some more info on Aiden and give you an update on Jackson tomorrow. I will also label the pics tomorrow. I'm signing off for the night because I am exhausted. Just wanted to give you all an update on the surgery.

Written Tuesday, 12/7:

Jackson's eye exam last week showed that his eyes went from being immature two weeks ago to Stage 2 on the border of Stage 3 last week. Not only are we anxious to hear about the laser procedure fixing Aiden's eyes, but we are hoping that Jackson's has NOT gone any further with the potential to need the surgery. All this time we worried about PVL (brain damage), brain hemorrages, chronic lung disease, vent settings, and never once did it dawn on me to think about the eyes. The one thing you don't think of is always the one that comes back to haunt you. Jackson also stopped his nasal cannula sprinting last week because the xrays both of the boys received showed a partial collapse in the right lobe. They were both given pulmacort and albuterol treatments, along with chest therapy. I don't think I've ever explained the chest therapy, but each boy has what looks like the rook in a chess game, but larger. On both the right and left sides of the chest and back, the nurses or us tap the bottom of the chess piece across their chests to loosen up any tightness. Believe it or not, they love it. Aiden's O2 saturation skyrockets to 100%, it is quite interesting to watch. One of the nurses actually gave me a larger chess piece (for lack of the clinical name) for me to perform some chest PT on Christie after I made a joke about giving her a massage. Jackson was also placed on two diuretics for the next week to remove the excess fluid, which in turn will alleviate any additional pressure that collects around the lungs that could potentially impair his ability to breathe properly. He resume sprinting yesterday for 3 hours and did fine. Hoping he gets back up to his 15hr/9hr on the cannula/CPAP very soon, as to me it looks like quite a setback. Jackson is also up to 39mls of food, which is 1 1/3oz. He weighed in at 4lbs 4oz last night, and if you remember back to last week, he was 4lbs 10oz. That's a lot of fluid he lost.

Labels added to pics below:

Above: Aidens newest milestone, he likes to have tantrums until he gets his pacifier.

Above: Aiden's first time "sprinting" with O2

Above: Aiden during today's swaddle hold with mom. Did you see how alert he is? And yes, he did just have eye surgery on Friday.

Above: Aiden all comfortable and holding his pacifier all by himself like a big boy!

Above: Jacks sporting a shirt! What a milestone

Above: Jacks coming out to play with mom!

Above: Mom's favorite picture...look at that smile!

Above: Such a fun playdate with mom, now I'm tired.

Above: So tired, back to bed.

Above pics of Mom holding Aiden

Above Pictures of Aiden before his surgery. He was getting reintibated and we were able to get pictures of him after they took off his CPAP and before intibated...nothing on his face? Weird!