Benton is a Bad Ass: Day 69

Yesterday's eye procedure went extremely well and our little man took it like a champ!

Cutie before surgery.

Waking up yesterday morning I felt a pit of fear in my stomach and I knew it was just nervous pent up energy for my son.  It's a weird feeling such nervousness and not being able to do anything about it except breathe.  The retinal specialist was set to arrive at the NICU at 5pm so we arrived early to be able to spend some quality time with our little man before they had to start putting in the painful eye drops and prepping him for the procedure.  We kept asking his nurses and doctors about how this meeting with the retinal specialist would go and they really couldn't give a good indication which only compounded my nerves.

According to the doctors, the retinal specialist would examine his eyes and see if either retina had already detached and see what stage Benton's eyes were in before deciding what route he would go to fix Benton's eyes.  We knew there were three possibilities.  One- a shot called avastin would be injected into his eyeball to stop the growth of the vessels ( this procedure is newer and has only been used for 2 years).  Two- laser surgery to help destroy the blood vessels encroaching onto his retina (most common procedure). Three - full surgery to reattach the retina.  The last would only be used if Benton's retina had already detached which we were praying had not yet happened.  Not knowing what surgery Benton was about to receive was very disconcerting because it just feels like everything is up in the air.

When the retinal specialist finally arrived he got right to work and examined Benton and then came out to speak with us in the waiting room.  He explained that he wanted to go with the shot method even though it is rarely used.  The reason for this is that one of Benton's eyes is so hazy he believes if he tried to laser that eye Benton would still have a 50-70% chance of becoming blind just because he wouldn't be able to be as accurate.  With the shots he could reduce Benton's chance for blindness down to 10-15%.  The doctor also explained that he could do laser in Benton's other eye but since that eye had severe Stage Three ROP in zone 1 (the worst place to have it) that the shot would be a better method for that eye as well.  After the explanation we immediately signed the consent form and the doctor went back in to do the procedure.

Benton did extremely well during the procedure and the retinal specialist seemed happy with everything.  We won't know how well Benton's eyes reacted to the surgery for at least two weeks.  At that point they will hope to see improvement in his ROP.  It is still possible that he might need more surgery or that this won't stop him from becoming blind, but his chances are so much better now than they were even a day ago.  

It's weird to think that today my little boy had a shot injected into his eyeball.  It made me remember that scene in the movie Love Actually where the widower is concerned his son is acting so withdrawn and staying in his room and says "god I hope he's not shooting heroin into his eyeballs".  Well after Benton's surgery he can always tell people he is a bad ass and had shots injected into his eyeballs when he was only a baby.  We are obviously blessed with one amazing baby that has so much courage against all the adversity and we couldn't be prouder of him.

Please continue to keep our son in your thoughts and prayers.  We are praying his ROP goes away and he retains his sight, that his lungs get stronger each day and one day he can get off the ventilator, that his immune system stays strong and keeps away any infection and that his feeds continue to go well.

Our sweet little fighter!