The Road to Recovery (with a few detours)

Landon has a wee bit of a difficult time with just about everything he has done in his short life and his recovery from surgery has been no exception. He did amazingly well right after surgery, but had a setback the next day. He needed a lot of blood during the night, which caused some complications because little babies like Landon have a hard time figuring out what to do with all the extra fluid the blood brings.

When you or I drink extra fluids or get a blood transfusion our bodies know where to put that fluid to help us. However, preemie babies haven't developed the mechanisms that control the fluid in their body very well and sometimes when their body gets a large influx of fluid, it leaks into places it is not supposed to be. In Landon's case, it migrates to his lungs and sits on them making it hard to impossible to breathe. The extra fluid also overwhelmed his kidneys so they stopped producing urine all the while his poor little body was trying to recover from a major surgery that completely changed his physiology.

This was too much for his body to handle and he ended up needing to be paralyzed and put on a very high support ventilator. He also gained a pound in extra fluid, making his body swell up. Although these were all expected results from his surgery, it is still scary to see doctors surrounding your baby trying to keep him alive and breathing. We are so very thankful to Dr. Ana (one of his main surgeons), Dr. D, and Dr. Allison who worked together to keep him breathing and comfortable so he could continue to heal. We are especially grateful to his other mother Nurse Kimmy, who changed her schedule so she could take care of him (and us) during this hard week. That is not to mention his other other mothers nurses Pam, Barb M., Barb K., Theresa, and Anne who always take such good care of him and called to check on him when they weren't there!

Thankfully after that one scary day Landon got back on the right track. He has slowly been losing the fluid weight and only needed to be paralyzed for a few days. This last week has definitely reminded me that every day in the NICU is like a present. Sometimes it is a pimple on your wedding day kind of present and sometimes it is an unexpected box of chocolates from your husband kind of present, but a present nonetheless. Today it was a good present because Landon got off of the vent for the FINAL time!!!!

We have spent all of our time in the NICU waiting for Landon to get his surgery and now that he has had it, we are now waiting for him to go home! Landon is awake and aware and ready to get on with him life. I can't wait to see what presents he brings us tomorrow and the rest of his life!

I have included pictures of him from today right after getting the vent. He is still a little puffy, but is definitely looking more like his old self. I think some of these pics have captured him looking at his baby angels. We tell him that the baby angels want him to get better so he can go out and live a life that they should have had as well. Just having him will help us to experience life as we never have before because of the gift each moment is.

I also have some amazing pictures that a photographer friend of ours, Andrew Langlois, offered to take. This was before his surgery, but I imagine we will have many more now that he is feeling better. There were so many beautiful pics I couldn't include them all (I may be biased that my child is ADORABLE). Andrew did an amazing job even with the bad NICU lighting and Landon's slightly yellowish tinge from being jaundice. I must make a shameless plug for him because of the wonderful service his did for us and because he is talented! His website is http://www.andrewlangloisphoto.com/ and we are so lucky to have him as friend.