the big reveal!

Tate has been doing FANTASTIC. Like better than I would have ever imagined. I can't say thank you enough to those who have been praying for us, supporting us, encouraging us, and feeding us. :) And thank you especially to our great God, who is healing my boy so quickly, and who has given us all the strength we need!


I've been dreading the moment that Tate asks to see his eye (or lack thereof). I kept picturing him looking in the mirror, then screaming in horror at the realization that the doctor really did take it out. Well, let me tell you, I have one fantastic kid. (Ok, I actually have 3 fantastic kids, but we'll just talk about this one for now.) 


We were in the mall today for a quick shopping trip and lunch. I usually speed past all those kiosks in the aisle, but today, we found one with some super cute knit animal hats. I'm pretty sure Tate spent about 3 hours trying them ALL on, trying to find the perfect one. I thought the alien with one eye would win out (he has a soft spot for all things with one eye), but he settled on a puppy hat. Since they had a special (buy one get one 50% off), I picked out a second hat, and it looked just as adorable on him, so we bought it too. As a photographer, I'm always keeping my eye out for cute props and accessories, and these fit the bill well. So after we picked up the big kids from school, I asked Tate if I could take some photos of him in his new puppy hat (you know, since he hadn't taken it off since we left the cash register at the kiosk). We snapped a few quick photos outside. 




My happy boy...

Ok, so this photo is a little heavy on the "cheese". :) But it gives you a good view of how his eye looks now. 

A few minutes ago, Tate was washing his hands, and that was the first time he'd been near a mirror without his eye bandage on. I was waiting for him to finish, then heard him say "Mommy, I see the pink stuff in my eye socket now." I braced myself for the screaming-in-terror to begin, but it never did. When I looked over, he had his left eye closed. I told him he could look at it again if he wanted, and he did. I asked him what he thought of it. He said "I think it's a cool eye, Mommy!" Wow, that's what I wanted needed to hear! I said, "Me too, buddy!" then I asked him if he'd like to see the photos I just took, he said sure. So we looked at the photos, he sort of nodded in approval, and off he went to play his Wii game. I'm SO incredibly proud of my big boy. 

funny kid!

Tate had his first day back to preschool yesterday! I NEVER expected that he'd be back to school just one week post-op, but he had been feeling great and was getting his energy back. I planned to take him in for an hour and a half or so. I knew he missed his friends (and his friends missed him!) and I thought it would be good to ease him back into the swing of things. So we went in a 9am (ok, who am I fooling? We were a few minutes late, as always!) and it took him a few minutes to step foot in the door warm up. Before long, he was building legos with his friends and having fun! I took a book with us to read to Tate's class called "My Fake Eye". The kids really seemed to enjoy it, and I think it answered most of their questions. So after reading the book, the kids had snacks, then they all made and decorated eye patches so they could be cool like Tate. :) By then, it was 10:30, and it was play time. That's the part I was nervous about because I was afraid Tate might get hurt. When I asked him if he was ready to go home, he said "You go ahead, Mommy... I want to stay here and play." I was surprised, but glad that he was happy to be back with his friends. I knew he'd be in good hands with his wonderful teachers, so I left him for the rest of the preschool day. Have I mentioned how proud of him I am? 

Since Tate had been doing better than we ever expected, we went ahead and took him back to church last night for class and preschool choir practice. He fell asleep on the way there (probably all that playing at school!), so we put his name tag sticker on the back of his coat. When he woke up a little later, I pulled the name tag off his coat and started to put it on his shirt. This was our conversation:

T: Mommy! I don't need a sticker!

Me: Yes, Tate, you need your name sticker on your shirt. 

T: Mommy! I reeeeeallly don't need a sticker.

Me: Why don't you need a sticker?

T: Because, Mommy. I was in the newspaper. They know who I am!

Boy, do I have my hands full with this one!

catching up...

I know, I know... it's been a while. And you'd think that being housebound would give me lots of time to blog! We've been enjoying family time since the surgery, so I haven't been on the computer as much. So let's get caught up....


We had a good first day home on Thursday. Tate had a good day, relatively pain-free. He only had pain meds one time that day, but I did end up calling the doctor on call at the hospital because of the amount of bloody drainage on his bandage. They never mentioned anything about how much we should expect, and when the bandage that we were supposed to keep on until Saturday began to "overflow" a little by Thursday night, I was worried. The doctor was very nice though, and said if it was saturated by Friday to bring him in, but otherwise, it sounded like it was perfectly normal. He had a good day Friday also, and the bandage didn't get too much worse, so we knew we could hang on until our appointment Saturday morning. He only needed pain medication once on Friday also, but I ended up calling the hospital AGAIN on Friday night... Tate's eyes started itching (both of them) really badly after his afternoon nap on Friday. We could not keep him from rubbing his eyes. We were literally trying to hold his hands down so he wouldn't rub his eyes, but we could hardly keep it up. After about 4 hours of this (and his good eye was all red and puffy because of rubbing it so much), we finally called the doctor on call to see what we could do, and what might be causing the horrible itching. He had no idea what the cause could be, but we were told to get Zatidor (an antihistamine eye drop) for his good eye. That worked wonders! But there wasn't much we could do about the other eye, and he had been messing with it so much that blood was soaking through his patch. I just held him and held his hands until we both fell asleep. 


Our appointment to get his bandage removed was at 9am on Saturday. I was REALLY nervous about this because I just didn't know what to expect. As some of you know, I have a weak stomach! I held Tate on my lap as the doctor (not our surgeon, but a doctor on his team) took Tate's bandage off. Since he was on my lap facing away from me, I couldn't see what it looked like until after she cleaned it up (which I figured was just as well). He definitely had some bruising, but the swelling was quite a bit less than we expected. Tate complained of pain as she cleaned up his eye, but he seemed to be doing ok. She had me lay Tate down in my lap so she could show us how to apply the eye ointment. Somewhere between her opening his eyelids and applying the ointment, Tate became very pale white as a ghost, super clammy, and passed out in my arms. I don't think the doctor realized it at first... she finished applying the eye ointment (which only took a couple of seconds) and I asked her if Tate was ok. I told her he was very pale and clammy. She said she was sure he must have just fallen asleep (ha! Not while she was doing that!) and that he was fine. She started calling his name, smacking the back of his hand, telling him to wake up... she got a little louder, and he was still unresponsive. So she started pressing his fingernails, then took his pulse. I was talking to him, pleading with him to wake up, calling his name... still, no response. I finally said, "Tate, you gotta wake up buddy! After this, we're going to Krispy Kreme to get donuts. What kind of donuts do you want?" Another moment of silence. Then, I hear the tiniest whisper... "Chocolate." I have NEVER been happier to hear the word chocolate in all my life! (And I'm usually pretty excited about that word!). I was so relieved that he was ok, but it was a big scare!




My mom took these photos at his appointment on Saturday morning... 

 

See the color difference after he passed out? In Mom's defense, I don't think she realized he was unconscioius when she was taking this one!

Well, let me just say that putting the eye ointment in is a LOT easier when the kid is unconscious! To administer the ointment, he can't move at all. After removing his eye, the surgeon placed a conformer in his eye socket. The conformer is a clear plastic piece like a big contact lens that is a place holder until he gets his prosthetic. The conformer has 2 holes in it... one toward the inside corner of the eye socket, one toward the outside corner. We have to take the tip of the tiny tube of ointment and place the tip inside the hole, then squeeze the tube until we see the ointment fill in the whole area behind the conformer. Sounds like fun, right? We have to do this twice a day (morning and night). Some days are easier than others, but it does seem to be getting a little easier as Tate gets used to it, and as his eye heals. It takes two of us to apply the ointment, so I'm hoping this is just something we have to do until his followup appointment on Thursday morning, and not for the next 6 weeks or so until he gets his prosthetic!

I have been really pleased with how well Tate is doing. He is happy and playing with his brothers and friends. He loves when visitors come to see him! He isn't complaining of pain anymore. Praise God! He even seems to have a little bit of a sense of humor about it! Noah (our 8 year old) mentioned something last night when we were cleaning his "eye" about his eye being red. We both shushed him, because we didn't know how Tate would react to the comment (especially since we were in the middle of doing his eye ointment, and let's face it, it's hard enough to get that done without comments from the peanut gallery). So right after our concurrent "Shush!", Tate pipes up with "Noah, that's not my eye! I don't have an eye there anymore!" I was waiting for him to add "Duh!" but no luck. Noah, in his constant state of happiness, just smiled at his funny baby brother putting him in his place. 

surgery day

Well, it's over. And I can't tell you how relieved I am! We didn't have internet access at the hospital (they have wi-fi, but we had a weak signal in our room, so I couldn't connect), so I couldn't blog yesterday. So this is how it all went down.... 


We were scheduled to arrive at the hospital at 7am for the surgery to begin at 830am. It was expected to last an hour and a half. We took Tate back to the pre-op area to get his hospital gown on (and he was NOT a fan, let me tell you!) and give him some cuddles before his surgery. We met with the anesthesiologist there, and got to sign the paper that says that I understand that a risk of anesthesia is death. I hate that form. I mean, I know I have to sign it, but I don't have to like it. Anyway, the nurse anesthetist brought Tate a cool little red wagon to ride to the OR in around 845am, but Tate wasn't having any part in that. So Rocker Birdie (Tate's hospital buddy) rode in the red wagon with his quilt, and Tate was carried off by a nurse, while yelling for his Mommy. Not my favorite part of the day. That, I am proud to say, is the only time I cried yesterday. I do admit to getting a little teary while waiting for his surgery to be over, but I wasn't the blubbering mess I was during his last surgery. Small victories, people... small victories. 


This is the last photo I took of Tate's eye before surgery... The purple "K" above his eye marks the eye that they're taking out. I'm glad that's a system that works!

So we went to wait in the adult waiting area primarily because you can eat on that side. (Yes, I have my priorities.) My awesome mom made muffins, and brought apples and bottled water, so we wouldn't have to leave the waiting area to go get food. We got a call at 915am saying that they had just started, and that intubation and everything anesthesia-related went well. 


My brother came to the hospital before work to wait with us for a while. My parents were also there waiting with us. This is my brother, Ted, on the left, Todd on the right. 

I had been told that we'd get a call every hour to update us on the progress of the surgery, so when we were called to the pediatric waiting area at 1015am, I walked straight to the phone at the desk to wait for the call, barely noticing our surgeon standing there waiting to talk to us! I was confused as to why he was out there at first. I just remember saying "It's over? It's really over?" And I'm pretty sure I didn't mean the surgery. This long journey, this journey that we've been on for 4 1/2 years.... it's over. Finally. Ok, maybe not completely over, but this huge hurdle that I've been dreading for 2 months... this was such a big part of it. The beginning of the end. So our surgeon, Dr Y, proceeds to tell us that this is something we will never regret. The eye had degenerated so much, that he said that without a doubt, we had absolutely made the right decision. Phew. I mean, I knew that. You've seen photos... you've heard stories. You know what we were facing. But it gave me so much relief to hear it from the guy who saw his eye, the whole thing, that we had made the right gut-wrenching decision. Wow. Thank you, God. Dr Y told us that they were taking him to Recovery, and we'd get to see him soon. An extremely long HOUR AND 45 MINUTES LATER, we finally were told he was waking up and we could go see him. The extra long nap may or may not have been from us keeping him up til midnight the night before his surgery. I couldn't really say. But when we walked to Recovery, he was sitting up (kinda) and drinking Sierra Mist. He looked good. He had a bandage over his left eye. He was quiet, but responsive. His bed was then wheeled up to his room, and we followed along, praising God that his surgery went without complications! 


Here is Tate, post-surgery, sporting the beautiful quilt that the sweet people over at Quilts of Compassion made for him before he went into the hospital back in August in Michigan. He was able to take the quilt and Rocker Birdie into the OR with him.

Getting some love and attention from his Nana right after we got settled into his room

The surgeon removed Tate's eye, inserted an implant behind the lining (the pink area like you see on the inside of your eye lid) and attached the muscles to it. They closed that lining, then inserted a plastic conformer in place of the eye (as a spaceholder while the eye socket heals). In 6-8 weeks, we'll travel to Burlington to visit the occularist to have his prosthetic eye made. 


Tate had lots of visitors yesterday, and he enjoyed every minute of the attention. He even ventured to the playroom with his brothers and his best buddy Aiden for about 15 minutes. He was worn out after all the visitors came, so he finally dozed off around 530pm. His friend Bri's amazing mom, Lori, brought us dinner and some yummy cookies to the hospital room. Tate slept through dinner, but he enjoyed his Happy Meal for breakfast this morning. :) Todd and I watched a movie last night while Tate slept, then dozed off ourselves. Tate slept until 730am today. He hasn't had any pain meds since the IV bag around 1230pm yesterday. I was concerned that it would wear off at some point during the evening last night, and that he'd wake up screaming in pain, but that never happened. I had a feeling that whatever pain he was experiencing prior to surgery might be just as bad or worse than post-op pain, and it looks like I was probably right. He still hasn't complained of pain, and when I asked him earlier today if his eye hurt, his answer was "Just a tiny bit." I can live with that, especially considering that I was told to expect significant pain for 4 days, and also because we know that this pain will end.

 Spoiled much? :) He got lots of fun gifts from friends who visited. 

Chilling...

Grandma was making him peanut butter graham crackers on demand. He loved every minute of it.

Checking out the playroom... he only lasted about 15 minutes, but we were surprised that he was up for it at all!

We were discharged this morning around 9am, and we go back Saturday morning to have his bandage removed. I'm not looking forward to that. I can see some drainage on the bandage, so I can only imagine what his eye must look like. We'll learn how to take care of the eye area while it heals, and I'm assuming that we'll get more information about our upcoming visit to the occularist. 


Overall, I'm relieved. That pretty much sums it up. I'm happy that the surgery went as well as could be expected, and that his pain level so far is so much better than I expected. As I was texting friends and family yesterday to let them know when he was out of surgery and that all went well, the response that I got most was "Yay!" I know why they were saying that. I really do understand. I was also super relieved that all went well... but I just felt like I couldn't celebrate that my kid's eye had just been surgically removed. I thank God that He was watching over my boy, and that we have gotten past this part of the journey. I don't want anyone to think for a second that I'm not thankful for Tate to be so close to pain-free, because I really am. And I'm hoping that very soon, I'll feel like REALLY CELEBRATING this part of the journey. 

ready as we'll ever be!

I can hardly believe Tate's surgery is in less than 48 hours. We are SO ready. Ready for his pain to be relieved. Ready for this to be over with. Ready to move on. Well, maybe not quite ready. I still have to pack the bag for the hospital. I still have to get my camera gear ready. (You didn't think I'd forget to document this part of our journey for you, did you?) I still have to spend tomorrow cuddling with my three favorite boys on earth before our new normal begins. But then.... then we're ready. 


My mother-in-law has made it here safely from Ohio. She'll be hanging out with Jake and Noah while we're at the hospital tending to Tate. And hopefully this icy weather will clear up quickly so they can get out of the house some! I am SO proud of the older boys for being so strong for their baby brother during this time. I can see their love for him in all the extra cuddles and help they've been giving him lately. I don't know that it's really hit home for them yet though. This day has been coming for nearly 2 months now, and maybe it just seems like all talk to them. It's a little surreal to me, too. 


I'm going to try to get another photo of Tate's eye tomorrow. (I don't know why I feel the need to document everything.) He hasn't been opening it much lately, but he has opened it more today and yesterday than I've seen in a while. And hey, it's my last chance, right? Would it be too morbid/gross/weird if I wanted to see his eye after they take it out? I'm REALLY curious. Apparently, after you get to the point of being able to talk about the surgery without crying, the next step is wanting to see the organ after it's removed. 


We'll get the call tomorrow to tell us what time his surgery will be. Thank you to all of you who have been praying for my little man. I can't tell you in words how much it means to us. I can't imagine having to go through this without the support of our family, church family, friends, and most importantly, our God. 


For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29:11-13

T - 6 days....

You would have thought I was a first-time mom the way I freaked out when I heard Tate cough this morning. No offense to first-time moms, of course, but you tend to be able to diagnose everything from strep throat to dehydration to stomach flu yourself by the third kid. You know the "vomiting protocol" by heart, and you only call the doctor if you think you need antibiotics. I woke up extra early this morning, unable to sleep because all of a sudden I was really nervous that Tate was going to get sick before Wednesday, and the surgery would have to be postponed. I got the boys ready for school, and as we got in the van (it didn't help my nerves that the back doors were frozen shut, despite the fact that I warmed up the car first), I heard him cough. 3 times. It sounded bad. Pretty rough, kind of croupy. So of course, I panicked. I took the boys to school, and came home and picked up the phone at 8am. Lucky for me, my best friend is a nurse. It's pretty nice to have your own personal Dial-A-Nurse when you have 3 boys. So I told her what happened.... "Sarah! Tate coughed this morning!" She promptly laughed. She knew right away why I was nervous, and more than that, she knew me well enough to know that I'd HAVE to be nervous about SOMETHING for the next 6 days. And she calmed me down, told me I didn't have to rush him to the pediatrician to get him on antibiotics this morning, and told me they'd check him out at his pre-op appointment this afternoon. Phew. That was close. 


As it turned out, Tate didn't cough the rest of the day. At least not real coughs. He has been happy all day, and seemed to be in very little, if any, pain. He did great during his quick check-up at his pre-op appointment. We didn't have to meet with the anesthesiologist today... we'll do that the morning of the surgery, since Tate is a healthy child. And I took care of paying the deductible to the hospital over the phone on Tuesday to save us a stop in the Finance office. So after the exam and some paperwork, we went to a little room so the PA could take measurements of Tate's good eye, so they can make the conformer for his left eye socket. That was when it started to hit home. He was having such a good day and with so little pain, that if he didn't start to flinch and squint because of the bright lights in the office, I think I would have picked him up and carried him out right then and there. But I know he needs this. And I know he will be ok. He'll be better than ok. He'll be healthier and happier when his sick eye is taken out. I know it will be an adjustment for us, but I also know it will be worth it. It just has to.


I am SO thankful for my friends and family. I have gotten so much support.... prayers, hugs, phone calls, and offers to help. I worry (cause that's what I do - worry) that some of the people who I have only recently gotten to know since all this chaos has been going on might think I'm nuts. Well, you know... more than I actually am. I've been so spastic with my emotions all over the place, panicking every day about something, off the deep end, worrying ALL the time. So I just want to say that I'm not usually this bad. Well, not quite. I do worry (especially when it comes to my kids), and I can be a little crazy and emotional at times (can't we all?), and I can be a control freak (what???). And you're thinking "So how is that all different from how you have been lately?" Ok, yeah, nevermind. 


And because I know you only really come here to see my cute little boy (not listen to my endless babble), I'll share one of my favorite photos of him... I took this in July, right after we were first told that his eye was degenerating and would have to be removed at some point. I didn't know how long it would be, so I had an urge to take some photos of him as he was then. He will ALWAYS be perfect in my eyes.