NICU Day 72 ~ (February 17th)

Thank you so very much for all your prayers today as Noelle went through her eye surgery.  We spoke with the opthamologist shortly after it was done, and he said they were able to get an even better look at her eyes after she was sedated, and they were a little worse than they originally appeared.  He said that the surgery was definitely the right choice and that they felt they had caught the issue at just the right time.  We talked through some further logistics with him such as what to expect over the next few years and whether or not the surgery would ever need to be repeated (it is possible it may need to be repeated at some point); but for now, he was very happy with how things had gone and expects her to do well as a result of today's procedure.  It was hard to watch her get wheeled away to the OR today; but she was in great hands, and we were very comfortable with the doctor God provided to care for her through all of this.  She now receives drops in her eyes every hour for these first 24 hours and then the dosage slowly backs down from there.  She is intubated and on the ventilator at this point, but she is doing very well with that and will probably be off of that within the next couple of days.  They told us to expect her to sleep for the next day or two after coming through anesthesia, but only a few hours after coming out of surgery, she popped her eyes open!!  She was pretty "zonked" otherwise and not moving around much, but she was definitely awake and recognizing our voices again.  We actually just checked on her a bit ago, and she had somehow worked the tape off her face around her tube, so they had to reposition that again for her.  She seems ready to extubate herself already!!  We're so thankful to God that she is through the surgery and appearing to do so well.  They will follow up tomorrow and then on Tuesday but do not expect to see much progress within that period of time, so the "telling" eye exam will be one week from Tuesday in which we expect to also get the clearance to go back "home" to Forsyth.  We are already in countdown mode and cannot wait to get her back to her original environment.  The staff at Baptist has been very nice; and after today, we were especially grateful for the care she received, but we are also very ready to get her back into her normal routine in familiar surroundings with the people who love her.  God was so gracious today in giving us a definitive path to walk, and we cannot thank Him enough for that.  Thank you for lifting us up in prayer all day today.  We had true peace through this process and knew that we were far from being alone through this procedure today.  We will share some pictures and hopefully more good news tomorrow!!