Love is a Battlefield

I'm a little behind with the blog and that's mostly because all my focus has been on Ryan.

His first couple of weeks of life have just been a battle. The very first week we sat down with the neonatologist to be told that Ryan has an Intraventricular Hemorrhage (IVH), this is known as bleeding of the brain. There are four different levels (1-4) and Ryan shows a four on the left side of the brain and one-two on the right. Our most recent update is that there has been no progression of the bleeding or the mass. While the news we were given still leaves room for severe disability nothing is ever a 100%. We felt that we would leave that up to Ryan and God.

The following week we were told by the cardiologistt that Ryan needed to have a Patent Ductus Arteriosus (PDA) surgery. Ryan's ductus arteriosus remained open causing blood to fill his lungs and also, redirect back to his heart. This was a pretty standard surgery for preemies, but odds were not in our favor. Ryan had surgery April 14, 2010 and it was successful. He tolerated that surgery very well. The family was in great spirits.

Then, at 5 am I received a call. I was told by the doctor in the NICU that an infection in Ryan's abdomen had become apparent and harmful. His belly was inflamed and dusky. Ryan had Necrotizing Enterocolitis (NEC), his intestines were infected due to a perforation in his bowel wall. We headed over to the hospital as soon as we could. When we arrived we were told by the surgeon that he didn't feel comfortable performing the surgery. Ryan's vitals were weak and he just had surgery the other day. Instead they made an incision in his belly at the bed side to drain out as much of the infection and swelling they could. The hope was that this would buy us some time and allow him to get stronger.

The weekend passed and while Ryan was sick he was fighting. He was remaining stable. On April 20, 2010 Ryan had surgery again to remove any dead sections of bowel. We waited and it felt like it was the longest two hours of my life. We were told over and over that he was sick and that this surgery would be too much for his body. They were also concerned that when they went inside they would find too much damage. This sat on my mind and my heart. When the surgeon finally came back to speak with us it was with a smile. He said he got the best scenario, there was a very small perforation and they cleaned out what had spilled out into the abdomen. They diverted Ryan's abdomen through a stoma and it would later be reattached. This would allow Ryan to begin healing.

This was only the first couple of weeks of Ryan's life.