Zeke's Story ~ Part 2 ~ Surgery Day

So you know that feeling that comes from the deep dark pit of your stomach, the one that causes you to Fear and Worry and be Anxious?
Well, I know that feeling now all to well!
The day before Zeke's Surgery I was fine, ready to take him in and give him over to the surgeon and nurses. We explained to Zeke what was going to happen and he said he was ready for surgery and ready for "No more eye patch!"

The "Before" picture

I took some "before" pictures so later we could see the difference the surgery made, and I didn't know how much of this he would remember, so of course I took lots of pictures.

We put the boys to bed that night and prayed with them, asking God to watch over Zeke the following day. Both boys drifted off to peaceful sleep with no worries.
I was the last one in bed that night and remember that feeling I was talking about...? Well it started to develop inside me. The "what ifs" started rolling through my head faster that I could really process what I was thinking.
"What if he reacts to the Anastasia?" What if he wakes up during surgery?" What if he doesn't wake up at all?" What if, what if, what if.........
I finally took myself into the boys room and rested my hand on my precious sleeping sons head and prayed. I asked God for peace, comfort, and for taking away the fear that was quickly settling over me. I prayed for the Surgeon and nurses. Then I gave my son back to God. What a gift he is....a child of God, given to the care of Ryan and I. I told God that Zeke was his baby, and whatever the outcome we would praise his name.

"When Peace Like A River......"

A feeling like that of warm sunshine spread over my entire body. I could feel the peace of God coming over me. I went to bed that night and knew God was in control.

I woke up at 3:30am, got myself put together and had a cup of hot steaming coffee. Ryan got Zeke up about 4:15am and told him where we were going. Bless his little heart...Zeke got the biggest smile on his face and said "Today is my surgery day!"

Wearing his "sock monkey" flannel pants and his "Starbuck, WA" t-shirt, we loaded him up in the car and started our 1 1/2 hour drive to Pasco, WA. We are so thankful that Zeke's Surgeon, who is from and works in Redmond WA, comes once a month to Pasco!

Now you might be wondering about our other boys. Don't worry....my mom and dad came down to stay with them along with cousins Olivia and Justis. They were well taken cared of.

Me and my Daddy!

 

We arrive at the hospital at 6:10am, got Zeke registered. They took us down to "Same day Surgery" and put in room 7.

Zeke made himself right at home, checking everything out including the automatic paper towel holder. ( he had to show dad how it worked!) He climbed up on the bed and posed for some pictures with dad and was all smiles. Not even the little boy across the hall that was whining and crying bothered him. After a little while the nurse came in, gave him a tiny little hospital gown, and gave him a "name tag" To  Zeke's delight she also gave him some stickers! They took his pulse, listen to his heart and made sure he was already to proceed. A 2nd nurse came in and gave Zeke some "loopy" juice  that would start making him very sleepy. They then took us up to surgery prep, and waited for the "loopy" juice to kick in. Zeke very slowly started to sway from side to side and back to front. The surgical nurse came and talk to us, and gave Zeke MORE stickers....Sponge Bob, Square Pants this time. We finally got Zeke to lay down on the bed with his blanket, and and it took hi all of  15 minutes to peel those stickers off the paper! All why saying in a sing-song voice...." Sssssquuuare Bbbbob, Sssssponge Paaants...." it was soooo funny!! Zeke's "sleepy doctor" came and talked with for a bit. He told us that once in the surgical room they would put Zeke to sleep with a mask, then place the IV and finish with giving him the Anastasia. He was a very nice man, and we felt comfortable with him. The nurse returned and wrapped Zeke in a warm blanket and carried him and "Chim-pan-zo"....his monkey, off to the surgery room.



Feeling a bit " loopy"

 Ryan and I walked down the hall to the waiting room and settled

in for a small wait. Zeke surgery should only take 25-30 minutes they said, and IF he wakes up in recovery, we will come and get you. The TV was on and we watch some silly show we hadn't seen in years. At this point my nerves were fine....then the clock hit 30 minutes.... Ok...anytime now they will be coming to get us. 45 minutes.....well he must be in recovery now.....55minutes...ok, at this point those bad feeling that come from deep inside you stared to come alive again. I couldn't hear the TV...all I saw was the clock. 1hour, 10 minutes......Really??? I s something wrong??? Why haven't they come for us???? 1 hour 20 minutes....Ok, that it, I think we need to find someone and ask whats going on!....FINALLY at 1 hour 25 minute the surgeon came in and said everything was FINE! Surgery went well and that they would be coming for us soon. Thank you Jesus! Those are the sweetest word a mother can hear when her baby has been in surgery. I really don't remember how long it was before the nurse stepped in and said Zeke needed us in recovery. We walked down the hall and before I even saw my precious boy I heard him....a frightened, scared cry coming from behind the closed door. We walked thought the door and there was our son, eye's closed, blood dripping slowly from the corners, crying out for his Dad and Mama. Talk about " stuffing it down" my emotions went through the roof as I saw my sweet, energetic son, and pale as the sheet he sat on, eye balls so swollen under his eye lids that he looked oriental. They told me to crawl up in the bed and lay down next to him. Zeke whimpered as he snuggled in to me, saying he didn't like it. He said we wanted out of bed and tried to get down. The nurses told Ryan that he could hold him, and Ryan scooped up his son, who asked for his blanket, and then settle down with his face pressed to his daddy's neck. Zeke whole body relaxed and he was able to rest. We stayed in recovery for about 20 minutes, Ryan sat in the rocking chair with Zeke the whole time, enjoying being able to comfort his son.

In recovery...

 We finally moved back to "room 7" and stayed there for another 45 minutes or so.
Zeke was discharged and we loaded him up in the car and headed to Walgreen to fill a couple of prescriptions, and get some more children's advil. Zeke slept the whole time we were in the car on the way home, and snuggled into the couch once we got home and continued to sleep for the next 4 hours. After Zeke woke and had a bite to eat, we started to see our sweet boy coming back to his old self. His color was returning and his voice that was all scratchy from the breathing tube they put in was starting to sound more like him. By the next day, our little boy was back...with no real memories of what happened the day before. He was happy and ready to take on the day. He said his eye didn't hurt, and that he wanted to go ride his bike! I was soooo happy and relieved to have my boy back.

This is the "good " eye if you can believe it!

So what now? Zeke has eye drops that we put in 4 times a day and an ointment that goes in once a day at bedtime for the next 2 weeks. the whites of his eyes are red, black and blue, and kinda "hamburger" looking. Not very pretty to look at!
 It's hard to tell right now with all the swelling if the surgery was a success or not. There is a 70% that he will NOT need it again.
Zeke is going to see his regular eye doctor this coming Thursday, and hopefully she will be able to get a good measurement on his eyes to see if the are indeed straight.
We are trusting God with our son, and with the healing, and straightness of his eyes. If we need to do this a again....well, we'll cross that bridge when we get there!

Zeke's story isn't over yet.....he still has a long way to go to seeing with out the thick glasses. But for now I must say I am glad that this part of the story is....over! :)

A Daily Prayer...

A few weeks ago I was able to go to my moms and spent the week without my husband visiting friends, going to ballet recitals,and just enjoying time with people I love.
It was a wonderful and exhausting week! Keeping up with 3 little boys and dragging them all over the place is alot of work for 1 person! In and out of the car and carseats, multiple restroom stops, nursing stops, and the occasional "your in big trouble"stops.The constant answering of questions, and discipline alone could put me over the edge!
 I really came to see how much I depend on my husband for a lot of things....helping wash hands before dinner, getting jammies on, saying bedtime prayers with the boys.Just having him there as a sounding board to listen to me when I've had just about all I can take of "bad attitudes" and "talking back", to lean on him in those times when you are just to tired to by the end of the day to read that bedtime story.
Then one night as I saw my wonderful friend who is a single mom I thought to myself...."This women is amazing"  She does all these things....by herself! What an amazing gift God has given her...and thats what it is....a gift. To parent by yourself, no matter how you came to do it is a huge task and blessing.
After that week without Ryan....I know I need to pray daily for her, and for all the other single Moms and Dads out there.
You are a inspiration to watch, a joy to know, and are loved by our God who blessed you with children. Thanks for being a wonderful Mama!
Love you Kerrie!

Zeke's Story

Ezekiel Ray.....what a boy! He is by far the funniest little person I have ever met! Zeke's whole body radiates personality, and he is loved by everyone!! God sure had a plan for Zeke when he made him. This is Zeke's story.....

We were so excited to find out that we were pregnant with Zeke in January of 2008. After being told by doctors that we would never conceive without the help of drugs, you can just imagine our surprise when finding out Zeke was on his way!

Everyone told us once we adopted, we would get pregnant...sure enough they were right! My pregnancy with Zeke was great! No morning sickness,no heartburn, no weight gain!

It was the perfect pregnancy!

Zeke was born on September 17, 2008. He was in an all fired up hurry to get here, and was born in 2 hours....start to finish! Not bad for your 1st!

At the time Ryan was working across the state in Startbuck, WA. We thought for SURE he would have enough time to drive home if I called him right away....I mean, 1st baby's are supposed to take a long time right??! Well poor daddy missed it! Zeke was about 5 hours old before he met his Daddy for the 1st time.

Zeke was a great baby..very relaxed, happy and never fussy. Thank goodness! Cory loved his new brother and wanted to hold him all the time.

Just about Christmas time my sister noticed that Zeke's left eye looked crossed. Of course when she said this I said..."NO! His eye is NOT crossed!" Gee....what could she be thinking about my sweet little boy? But wait.....his eye DOES look a little crossed....but I must just be worried now that she said something.

Well.. about 2 days after that comment....Ryan and I decided...yes,

his eye is a bit crossed. It was strange....his eye was never crossed before.

How does it just start being crossed?

I took Zeke to the Doctor and he sent us to a Children's Optometry Physician to have Zeke further checked out.

I had no idea what to expect at the eye Doc. How did they check the vision? He can't read letters yet. How is Zeke going to react to a stranger looking in this eyes?  Zeke did awesome! He sat in the "big" chair and let Dr. Badorek do everything she needed to without so much as a fuss. She put some drops in Zeke's eyes that not allow him to move them. Only the brain could control the movement. Then she held different lenses up to Zeke's eye's and as she got closer to the correct prescription, his eye would become straight! It was amazing! I have never seen anything like it!
At the end of the examine she said " Well...we have a couple of different things going on with Zeke's eyes" Great....you can only imagine the pounding in my heart.What was wrong with my 16 months old eyes!!
She said that Zeke has Amblyopia - otherwise known as lazy eye,[1] is a disorder of the visual system that is characterized by poor or lack of vision in an eye that is otherwise physically normal, or out of proportion to associated structural abnormalities. It has been estimated to affect 1–5% of the population.[2]

Amblyopia means that visual stimulation either fails to transmit or is poorly transmitted through the optic nerve to the brain for a continuous period of time. It often occurs during early childhood, resulting in poor or dim vision. Amblyopia normally affects only one eye, but it is possible to be amblyopic in both eyes if both fail to receive good, clear visual images. Detecting the condition in early childhood increases the chance of successful treatment.

The colloquialism "lazy eye" is frequently used to refer to amblyopia, the term is inaccurate because there is no "laziness" of the eye itself. The term "lazy eye" is imprecise because it is a layman's term for strabismus, particularly exotropia. [3]

He also was dealing with
Strabismus - is a condition in which the eyes are not properly aligned with each other.[2] It typically involves a lack of coordination between the extraocular muscles, which prevents bringing the gaze of each eye to the same point in space and preventing proper binocular vision, which may adversely affect depth perception.



Strabismus can be either a disorder of the brain in coordinating the eyes, or of one or more of the relevant muscles' power or direction of motion. Difficult strabismus problems are usually co-managed between orthoptists and ophthalmologists.

So on top of that my sweet baby has very poor vision! She told me that the eyes can't "grow" if they can't see together. Zeke was born farsighted as most everyone is. The problem is that his eye's didn't grow. so now the brain thinks that the left eye is straight when in fact it's turned in.

Dr.Bardorek decided to put Zeke in glasses with "prism" in the lenses to see if that would allow his eyes to "see" together, so that they could begin growing, thus improving his vision.
Of course a million and one questions and thoughts went through my head in a matter of seconds. How will he keep them on? How long will he need to wear them? Do they even make glasses small enough? How thick with his lenses be? Do you mean my sweet baby hasn't been able to see all this time? What if he doesn't know me when he does "See" me? (stupid, I know...but I did think it!)

Dr. Barorek told me not to worry....everything would be fine, and that she would do her best to help heal Zeke's eyes and get him seeing again.
When we sent to get Zeke's 1st pair of glasses, the look on his face was priceless! He put those little glasses on, and he COULD SEE!!!

He loved his new glasses! He loved wearing them! I think because he could see, he would rather leave them on than run around without them. I was soooo happy!
Over the next year we went to the eye Doc. every 4 weeks, we changed prescriptions almost every time we were there, unfortunately to a stronger prescription, with more prism. Zeke's eyes just weren't improving with the glasses.

Dr. Badorek decided to send us for a 2nd opinion. She sent us to Dr. Lanart, and very well known Children's Eye Surgeon from Seattle. Thankfully he travels to the Tri-cities once a month, so we were able to meet with him there instead of driving 6 hours to Seattle.

He checked Zeke over and said yes...Zeke would need surgery. But 1st we needed to get the vision in Zeke's left eye closer to the vision in his right eye. Right now he said Zeke's prescription is +3.50 on the right eye and +6.50 in the left! So how do we accomplish this??? You patch the "good" eye, the one that Zeke uses to see, and force the "bad" eye to work for itself. We would need to patch for 10 hours a day.

Even this presented some challenges! Really Lord....couldn't one thing be easy?!

The patches are sooooo sticky that when we took the 1st one off it literally ripped Zeke's cheek skin off! Poor little guy! We then began trial and error of finding the best way to put on and take off these patches. We ended up buying a Adhesive "barrier" to wipe on around the eye before placing the patch, and the use a Adhesive "remover" to get the thing off! Zeke of course is a real trooper, and once we got it figured out, was fine with the removal process.

We went back to see Dr Lanart about 2 weeks ago and he said that Zeke's eye has improved greatly! Thank you Jesus! Now he is ready for surgery!

Zeke is scheduled for Eye Surgery on August 4th. He will be having surgery on BOTH eyes. Dr. Lanart said that the success is much higher if done on both.

So now we are patching for 6 hours a day. Waiting for our surgery day! 

I try not to think of all the "what ifs" that can happen to my baby boy as the Anesthesiologist puts him under... and then there's the knife....I know that God is in control and that his plan for Zeke is perfect. But the Mama in me is still a bit worried.

I will continue "Zeke's Story" as we continue through this journey to healthy "straight" eyes!

~Jolene

I think I'll blog...again!

Yes....I thought I would give this a try again after months of total "quite" from me! Am I going to be better than last time? I wish I knew! I love the thought and idea of a blog. I love knowing that somewhere out there, someone likes to read what I write and maybe leave a comment.

So between the feeding, napping, changing, feeding again, and caring for 3 little boys, I will try my best to keep this little blog updated.

I hope you'll come along with us on this little thing I like to call "A 3 ring circus!" of raising boys!
See you soon!
~Jolene