"Fixing my eyes!" (updated at bottom...)

Eye Surgery Day for Parker

April 29, 2011

We're on our way to take Chloe to a friend's house and Parker to the surgery center.

All dressed in the hospital gown and "fuzzy socks" - waiting for surgery.  I am surprised at how calm, patient and happy Parker was being since he hadn't eaten anything since the night before.

"I don't want to wear my fuzzy socks anymore!  I gonna throw them on the floor!"

How much cuter could this little boy get!?!

Back and forth we went in the hall as we waited for all the different dr's and nurses to come talk to us.  This little car saved our sanity and gave him something to do...since all the stuff I brought for him weren't as cool as this!  How can books, hot wheel cars and crayons and paper compete with this!?

Time for surgery...

They let me carry him back to the operating room and stay with him as they gave him "sleeping gas" to fall asleep.  Once he was asleep, they ushered me out of the room and to the waiting area.  That's when I got a bit emotional.  I made my way to the restroom where I hid in the stall and let my tears come.  Why?  Well, it was hard to see him laying there, lifeless, and knowing that when I get to see him again, he will have had his EYES cut on (actually the eye muscles).  It was hard to know that he would be in pain and there was nothing I could do about it.  I obviously want the best for him, that is why we were doing surgery, but I hated the thought of him having to go through that.  It also brought up many emotions from surgeries and procedures with Karleigh which are never easy to relive.  So I cried for a minute and then pulled myself together.

Just out of surgery and still sleeping from the anesthesia.  He looked pretty puffy, but not quite as puffy as I thought he would.

Waking up from the surgery was actually the worst part of it all for him.  The nurse said that others have told her that it often feels like you have sandpaper in your eyes.  He was SO uncomfortable and cried and cried uncontrollably.  Luckily he still wanted me to snuggle him while he cried.  Finally, after about 20-30 minutes of crying, he managed to tell me that his eyes hurt really bad.  So, the nurse gave him a little more pain medicine in his IV and that calmed him down in really fast.  He then slept for about 20 more minutes.  When he woke up, he was still sad and crying, but was at least consolible.  He refused to open his eyes, though.  One thing that I thought was so sweet was when he heard another child in recovery next to us crying.  He was so concerned, "that's baby's sad!  Can I go give him a hug?"  He can't stand it when other kids are sad and always wants to go comfort them...even when he just got out of surgery!

After getting dressed and gathering our stuff, we headed to our friends house to pick up Chloe.  He was awake, but still refused to open his eyes. 

In the car, waiting to go home.  These arm "no-no's" made it so he couldn't bend his elbows and rub his eyes.  He didn't seem to mind them at all.

Once at home, he was starting to hurt again and was also hungry since he hadn't eaten all day long.  Nurse Chloe took great care of him!!  She is such a great big sister!

She fed him his requested food...goldfish and milk.

Those poor little eyes!!  Oh, they look SO painful!!!  But look at how much straighter they already look!!  YEAH!!

After more pain meds and alternating between playing with Chloe and Zach and sitting on my lap, he finally fell asleep on my lap as the other kids played right in front of us - even with all their noise!  Tired little guy!!

The day after surgery, he was back and forth between "my eyes hurt" to jumping off couches and playing around...and just being his busy, into everything self.  I really thought this surgery would slow him down longer than that!!  But I am extremely grateful that he is doing so well and that this recovery hasn't been as bad as I envisioned!

The day after munching on his string cheese...cheesing for the camera! (wearing his #2 shirt from Grandma)

The first couple times I put his glasses on, he commented unprompted, "I can see better!"  So while I still do see some drifting of his eyes, they are definetely better!  And hopefully with wearing glasses, his eyes will continue to grow stronger and stronger and years down the road, he may not even need glasses!  We'll see at his 6 week post-op check-up if he needs a new prescription or not for his glasses.

Thank you for all the prayers and concern for our little handsome 2 year old!  He truly is such a sweet little boy and so much fun to be around!  Luckily, the one thing that slows him down for a while is sitting on the couch, reading books!  We do that lots...especially when his busyness hasn't stopped for a while and I am running thin on patience and energy.  I love my little Parker-pants!!

Update:

Today I took Parker for his first post-op appointment.  Dr. Berman says his eys are looking great and just as he wanted to see!  And the best part of all...He said they are STRAIGHT when he wears his glasses, which is what we were hoping for!!!  HOORAY!!!  He will go back in a month and see if his prescription needs changed, but the Dr. thinks it will probably be fine.  Now let's see if his frames hold up for at least a month!  They are hangin' on by a thread!

Parker's surgery update...

(written yesterday) Today Parker went to his pre-op appointment. Surgery will be Friday at 10:20…my poor little baby can’t eat that whole time he is waiting! We’ll have to stuff him good the night before. Anyway – the good news is…his eyesight has improved somewhat. He is seeing things better since we have done the atropine drops (it basically blurred his good eye to make the bad eye work harder…like patching does). So, his brain has been forced to try to figure things out better and it has been working. The bad news is, his eyes still will not straighten all the way with glasses, which is why he needs the surgery. But the dr. also noticed something that I was noticing the other day. He has kind of a V-pattern when he looks up and down. When he looks up, his eyes go outward. When he looks down, his eyes cross a lot. So instead of just snipping back the inside eye muscles by his nose (both eyes), he will also be cutting back the muscle on the bottom of the eye to help with the V problem. Poor little dude! So, now each eye will have two muscles cut instead of one.


He is not cutting the inside ones the full amount to get full correction since wearing glasses helps to correct it to a certain point. So, he will still need glasses. But the hope is, is that he will eventually grow out of the cross-eyed-ness all the way on his own. The dr. said if he just went ahead and cut all of it now and tried to get rid of the glasses, he has a very big chance that they eyes will then start turning outward. So, he will cut it enough to try to get them straight while wearing his glasses, and hopefully as he grows, his eyes will strengthen enough to stay midline on their own without glasses. (although, he still may have to wear them for the farsighted part of his eyes). So after about 6 weeks from surgery, we will go back to see if his prescription needs to be changed and if we need to do more patching (atropine drops) to help keep the eyes working their best.


I am nervous for him and also nervous for recovery afterwards. Trying to keep him from rubbing his eyes is NOT going to be fun! We will probably have to splint his arms so he can’t bend them. Up until today, he has been excited for “getting his eyes fixed.” But tonight he looked at me and said, “I don’t want to have surgery and get my eyes fixed.” I asked why and he said, “because it will hurt.” I asked him who told him that and he said “the dr.” I then told him that I would give him some medicine to help his eyes not hurt so much and that seemed to calm his fears and then he said he was fine having surgery. So even at 2 years old, he is feeling a bit nervous. We took him to the surgery center today for a little walk-through and they gave him a teddy bear that he can take to the surgery. Maybe he was sensing some of the other kids worries.


Anyway – say prayers all will go well and that his little darling eyes will straighten out with the surgery!

Grateful on this Easter...

I am grateful for the words in this song.  It has an extra special place in my heart, as this is the song we had my sister and mom sing/play at Karleigh's funeral.  Because of Jesus Christ and a wonderful plan of a loving Heavenly Father, we will see her again and her little tattered body will be whole.  I am forever indebted and grateful to Them.

Happy Easter!!

Long awaited...

After many LONG months of this...

and this...

(during one storm, the snow actually covered the seats of the swings)

and this...

(it was about 2-3 feet for a couple months - someplaces even higher!)

It has FINALLY melted and we are starting to see these!!!

Halleluia!!!

I LOVE SPRINGTIME!!!

2 cute babies...

I haven't been a good aunt!  3 weeks ago I got another niece and nephew!  Here they are!!

Baby Max (my sister, Marci's 4th baby)

8 lb 14 oz and 21 in long

Born: March 25th, 2011

Babie Annie (my sister, Julianne's 2nd baby)

9 lb 12 oz and 22 in long

Born:  March 27, 2011

They are quite adorable, aren't they!!?!  I am a proud aunt!  Good job Jan and Marci for making such darling little squishable babies!  I wish I could come squeeze them!  Miss you!

Celebrating your beautiful life...

Darling Karleigh,

April 14th is always a bittersweet day for our family.  It is the day you returned home - a home far more beautiful than I can even comprehend.  A home that feels so far away, but yet so close.  A home that I long to be someday.  A home that I pray will welcome me home and there I will be greeted with your beautiful face.  I look forward to that day.  I look forward to the time when I hold you close again.

It is a day that often has many mixed emotions.  Actually, quite honestly, there are mixed emotions for many days.  This year's anniversary has come at a time when life has thrown me a few too many curve balls.  I have struggled to feel in control of my emotions.  I have struggled to feel that I am keeping my head above water.

(Statue from Grandma Brammer after your passing)

But through all that has been going on, I truly have felt you near.  I have felt the uplifting arms that only a precious angel can give.  I feel in my heart that Heavenly Father often blesses me with help from my sweet daughter up above.  I know there are probably many times that you are there helping me and I am too focused on other things and don't even realize it.  Thank you for not loosing faith in your very imperfect mother!

So today, the kids and I celebrated your life together.  Daddy felt he needed to remember it in other ways, which is ok.  One thing I have learned is that we all need to sometimes deal with things in our own way - and we need to be sensitive to that.  So I want to record what the kids and I did to celebrate your life. 

A few days ago, I wasn't thinking of it that way - a celebration.  I was too focused on the pain of you not being here and also trying to keep the awfulness of the actual happenings of this day from resurfacing.  But then your beautiful Grandma and Grandpa Clay and Aunt Joy helped to remind me of what I should be focusing on and what I/we try to focus on every year - Your beautiful life.  This package from Grandma, Grandpa and Joy came at just the right time and I am so grateful for it.

So, this morning, Chloe, Parker and I went and bought some indoor flowers.  If you remember, I love to garden and plant flowers on your anniversaries, but it is not quite planting time here in Maine.  So, we will get to enjoy your flowers indoors this year until I can get outside to plant some for you.

When Zach got home from school, we headed to the store to pick up balloons and then each wrote you a little note.  The kids were so excited to send you a message!  And what a better spot to do it than the lighthouse and ocean!  Beautiful - just like you! (although very windy!)

Well...Parker was excited until his balloon to you didn't come back!  Then he got pretty sad and said, "Can Karleigh bring me my balloon back?  I want to have my balloon back!"  So if you are able to swing that one, it would be very much appreciated for this sweet little 2 year old!

After sending you our notes, we drove back down the hill where it wasn't quite so windy and had a chilly picnic dinner.  We had lots of seagulls flying overhead waiting for us to drop food so they could swarm and fight each other for a little crumb when we left.  They sure can be loud little buggers!

As we ate, we had this view!  Beautiful!  Zach told the younger kids some of his favorite memories of you.  They were how everytime you were in your carseat in the van, and he was getting in - you would demand in your own funny and loud way that he give you a hug - no exceptions!  After he did, you would usually laugh and we could leave.  If he didn't, you would be so sad and would gladly let him (and the rest of us) know it!

The other memory he told about was when our dog, Mickey would come into the room that you were in and you would immediately light up and get so excited!  You would start to squeal and laugh and squirm like crazy!

(Please all those that continue on with the next picture...remember...pregnancy doesn't do good things to me!  Swelling, weight gain, puffiness...etc.  I simply decided to post this picture because I want it included in our family blog book.  So I am sucking up my pride and posting it!!  Oh, and also...I only have a little over 4 weeks left since I am going a week early!)

After eating, the kids went and tried to throw rocks in the water.  It was actually a lot further away than this picture shows.

We then went and swung for a bit and ran around on the field to keep warm...or shall I say, the kids ran around! 

After playing around for a while, we walked down closer to the water and they were able to actually get the rocks into the water.  We stayed for a bit, but got pretty cold and the water started to get too close with big waves, so we headed home to watch a movie together.

When we got home, I opened a package from your Aunt Marci.  Inside I found a very beautifully written letter for the reason behind this beautiful water globe she sent for your anniversary.  It says, "Never Lose Hope."

So beautiful, just like you.  Just like your life.  Just like your special aunt.  So kind and thoughtful.

You have been blessed to have an amazing extended family!  Your Grandpa and Grandma Stimpson were going to bring you flowers today and clean your headstone for me, but then mother nature decided to drop some snow today.  So, they will do it hopefully next week when the weather is better.  Your Grandma and Grandpa Clay and Aunt Joy bought flowers to remember you and also sent balloons and notes to you in heaven.  Aunt Julianne and Uncle Ryan took some pink tulips to a sweet older lady that lost her child years ago to help brighten her day.  I recieved many texts, messages and thoughts shared in remembrance of you and your beautiful life.  I know there were many others, family and friends, that thought of you a lot today.  I am grateful that you have touched so many people's lives and that your memory lives on.  I am grateful to so many loved ones that think of you and remember your life.  I am even so very grateful for all those that think of you and I don't even know it - because I know there are many.

So on this 6th anniversary of your returning home to the loving arms our Savior, Jesus Christ and our Father in Heaven, I hope you were able to see and feel how much you are loved and missed every.single.day!  I hope you were able to see and feel what an impact your life was on so many - especially your family. 

We miss you.  I am grateful that the missing and pain of you being gone is not as intense and overwhelming as it was years ago.  There are still times when I just curl up in my bed and sob and long to hold my sweet, precious angel.  There are still times when out of the blue it hits me all over again - you really are not here - I really do have to live my life without you here to hold and love.  But how grateful I am that you do not have to endure the pain and struggles that your beautiful little body was born with.  Thank you for enduring your trials with such grace because it surely taught me a huge example of enduring to the end and making a choice to be happy despite struggles and pain.  You truly exemplified that in your short little life.  Your smile and laughter will forever be engrained in my memory.  Thank you for being willing to come to this earth and endure all the pains of your physical body so that you could teach me, your family and so many others how to be.  Thank you for being near when I feel weak and for loving me.  You are not only my beautiful daughter, but my beautiful friend.

I love you, sweet Karleigh Ann.  May you always know how much you are loved.  May you always know how much you are missed every single day.  I pray you will always be near.  I pray you will have other angels in heaven lifting you up as you lift your struggling and imperfect mom, because I know it is not an easy task.

I love you with all my heart.