"Mom, can we take this off?" Those were Jacob's first words when he woke up from surgery, referring to one of the wires attached to him. For the next hour he woke up off and on and talked our ear off. Let's journey back...
This morning our little angel, MY MOM, came to our house at around 6:20am to start watching our girls so Matt and I could take Jacob to the hospital for his bilatteral strabismus surgery. We woke Jacob up, quickly dressed him and brought him downstairs. He was pleasantly surprised to see Grandma in our living room! We headed off to the hospital, "Where are we going?" "We're going to go get your eyes fixed!" Mom explained excitedly. "Oh, OK!" We hadn't told him a thing prior to this and weren't planning on saying anything more, and that was enough for him :-)
He was excited as we got to Children's Hospital in Tacoma to see the bushes cut skillfully into animal shapes. He enjoyed playing with all the hospital's toys along the way to the second floor where we checked in. Once we were up there...the first waiting room: toys to play with, the second waiting room: toys to play with, the holding room: toys to play with...what a great hospital :-) He was never bored! (oh yeah, and all TV's were set to Playhouse Disney!) He got all his vitals taken, drank the yucky drink (which he didn't want to finish after his first swallow, but we forced him to...), got more vitals taken, met with some nurses, the anesthesiologist, his eye doctor, and off he walked with the nurse into OR. That was the weirdest feeling for us this morning, watching him walk away into OR without even looking back, completely trusting us and the nurses to "fix his eyes"...he's really growing up... About a half hour later, his eye doctor came back to the waiting room to inform us that the surgery went well, a little more bleeding in the left eye than he'd like, but all is well. About 40 minutes later they wheeled Jacob up to us to bring us all into his room. He had woken up in recovery for them, but went right back out as they were wheeling him to us. They had to wake him up again to transfer him into his room's bed, but he went right back out again. It took a good hour or so for him to start waking up. From 12:30-1:30 he woke up off and on and had all kinds of things to talk about!
"Mommy, we need to ride the cars and trucks up and down...when we gotta get home."
"We go to Grandma's house?"
"Dad...for Christmas I want a Christmas tree...in the snow."
"Got to slide on the hill on sleds with Gabe."
"I'm talking silly right now."
"I wanna go at Chuck E Cheese's."
"Doctor! I need to ask the doctor something. Uh...just kidding."
"My eyes are feeling a little better...still a little sleepy though."
"Maybe next week we can play the LIFE game...or maybe we can play right now..."
"Mom, maybe we go to play room and play, with the balls, jump in."
"Hey! Maybe we go to the Supermall!"
"OR maybe we go to the pool at Grandma's house."
"Hey! I didn't throw up! A long time ago I thought I was gonna throw up, but I didn't! I just needed water."
(all said with his eyes closed with a few minutes of sleep inbetween) :-)
He finally stayed awake and watched Wow Wow Wubzy while we were waiting for them to pull out his IV and discharge us. I had a hard time looking at his eyes when he was awake off and on, they were extremely dilated and bloodshot, and in general he was very pale and not quite "there" so it was a very blank look. ...made Mommy feel a wee bit nauseous...but it got better as he woke up more.
We were all very happy when the nurse had me sign the paperwork to get him out of there. We got home around 3:00, and were VERY thankful for my mom to have watched the girls for so long! We joked about how we tried to make it a full 12 hours, but didn't quite make it :-) THANK YOU, MOM!!!
Thank you all for your prayers and kind words. His eyes are looking so much better, I can't wait for a few weeks down the road when they're not bloodshot anymore and we can see a more final outcome. One nice thing was that one of our nurses had a daughter who had the surgery a year ago (who was also five at the time) and her eyes are perfectly straight now and she even got to discontinue wearing her glasses! She said her daughter had double vision for about three weeks, but then all was well. The doctor is still thinking Jacob will have to continue wearing his glasses, but we won't know for a while for sure. I'm to make his post-op appointment for next week sometime, hopefully we'll know more then. In the meantime, no food today, only limited liquids (eye and ear surgery patients are most often very nauseous after surgeries, and for at least the first six hours anything you put in them will come right back up) Below are some pictures from the day. We are so thankful that things went well and are antsy to see the finished (non-bloody) outcome a month from now!
This morning our little angel, MY MOM, came to our house at around 6:20am to start watching our girls so Matt and I could take Jacob to the hospital for his bilatteral strabismus surgery. We woke Jacob up, quickly dressed him and brought him downstairs. He was pleasantly surprised to see Grandma in our living room! We headed off to the hospital, "Where are we going?" "We're going to go get your eyes fixed!" Mom explained excitedly. "Oh, OK!" We hadn't told him a thing prior to this and weren't planning on saying anything more, and that was enough for him :-)
He was excited as we got to Children's Hospital in Tacoma to see the bushes cut skillfully into animal shapes. He enjoyed playing with all the hospital's toys along the way to the second floor where we checked in. Once we were up there...the first waiting room: toys to play with, the second waiting room: toys to play with, the holding room: toys to play with...what a great hospital :-) He was never bored! (oh yeah, and all TV's were set to Playhouse Disney!) He got all his vitals taken, drank the yucky drink (which he didn't want to finish after his first swallow, but we forced him to...), got more vitals taken, met with some nurses, the anesthesiologist, his eye doctor, and off he walked with the nurse into OR. That was the weirdest feeling for us this morning, watching him walk away into OR without even looking back, completely trusting us and the nurses to "fix his eyes"...he's really growing up... About a half hour later, his eye doctor came back to the waiting room to inform us that the surgery went well, a little more bleeding in the left eye than he'd like, but all is well. About 40 minutes later they wheeled Jacob up to us to bring us all into his room. He had woken up in recovery for them, but went right back out as they were wheeling him to us. They had to wake him up again to transfer him into his room's bed, but he went right back out again. It took a good hour or so for him to start waking up. From 12:30-1:30 he woke up off and on and had all kinds of things to talk about!
"Mommy, we need to ride the cars and trucks up and down...when we gotta get home."
"We go to Grandma's house?"
"Dad...for Christmas I want a Christmas tree...in the snow."
"Got to slide on the hill on sleds with Gabe."
"I'm talking silly right now."
"I wanna go at Chuck E Cheese's."
"Doctor! I need to ask the doctor something. Uh...just kidding."
"My eyes are feeling a little better...still a little sleepy though."
"Maybe next week we can play the LIFE game...or maybe we can play right now..."
"Mom, maybe we go to play room and play, with the balls, jump in."
"Hey! Maybe we go to the Supermall!"
"OR maybe we go to the pool at Grandma's house."
"Hey! I didn't throw up! A long time ago I thought I was gonna throw up, but I didn't! I just needed water."
(all said with his eyes closed with a few minutes of sleep inbetween) :-)
He finally stayed awake and watched Wow Wow Wubzy while we were waiting for them to pull out his IV and discharge us. I had a hard time looking at his eyes when he was awake off and on, they were extremely dilated and bloodshot, and in general he was very pale and not quite "there" so it was a very blank look. ...made Mommy feel a wee bit nauseous...but it got better as he woke up more.
We were all very happy when the nurse had me sign the paperwork to get him out of there. We got home around 3:00, and were VERY thankful for my mom to have watched the girls for so long! We joked about how we tried to make it a full 12 hours, but didn't quite make it :-) THANK YOU, MOM!!!
Thank you all for your prayers and kind words. His eyes are looking so much better, I can't wait for a few weeks down the road when they're not bloodshot anymore and we can see a more final outcome. One nice thing was that one of our nurses had a daughter who had the surgery a year ago (who was also five at the time) and her eyes are perfectly straight now and she even got to discontinue wearing her glasses! She said her daughter had double vision for about three weeks, but then all was well. The doctor is still thinking Jacob will have to continue wearing his glasses, but we won't know for a while for sure. I'm to make his post-op appointment for next week sometime, hopefully we'll know more then. In the meantime, no food today, only limited liquids (eye and ear surgery patients are most often very nauseous after surgeries, and for at least the first six hours anything you put in them will come right back up) Below are some pictures from the day. We are so thankful that things went well and are antsy to see the finished (non-bloody) outcome a month from now!
Jacob on his way into the hospital to get his eyes fixed!
Jacob at Children's Hospital at Tacoma Marybridge
Jacob in his "happy place" :-) LETTERS!
Jacob sleeping soundly while Mommy & Daddy anxiously await seeing his eyes
Jacob finally all the way awake! Straight eyes, we haven't seen that in about 1 1/2 years!
Jacob and Daddy on our way out of the hospital
Jacob opening his "Great job being brave!" gifts from Mommy & Daddy, and Aunt Karen.
6 comments:
It sounds like it went fabulously!! I am so glad. I've been anxiously waiting to hear all day. It was great to see both his eyes looking straight ahead!! How great is that?!
OK, so if his surgery went so well...why is Auntie Karen bawling? There was something about that picture of him looking straight ahead. I'm so happy to see how great his eyes look, but want to take the bloodshot part away for him. In my opinion, Jacob should never have owies!
Sounds like you had a really good experience there. That's awesome!
I'm so proud of you Jacob (and Mommy & Daddy). We'll continue praying as he recovers. Can't wait until both boys are up & ready to play again.
P.S. I'm cracking up about all the fun things he had to talk about. That just sounds like a normal day at the Finnestad house. ha ha!!
That's awesome you guys. Greg and I are so glad that the surgery was a success.
yeah Jacob! Great job being such a brave big boy. Glad to hear the surgery went well (although I didn't know about it ahead of time). Hope your family is doing well. Jenna is growing up so fast and is a beautiful little girl (just like the rest of the kiddos). Blessings and best wishes!
When I saw the after picture tears came to my eyes - so AWESOME! We missed you last night Jacob @ AWANA : )
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