Six Years Ago Today

Six years ago today Josh had the first surgery to his right eye. Six years ago, we had to hand our baby boy over to a doctor we had only met a few days earlier.
We sat in the waitingroom for almost four hours for a surgery that was supposed to only take 3 hours.
Nothing prepared me, not even being a nurse, for the moment I saw my son after his surgery. He was like a pitiful newborn kitten, weak and frail looking, yet with a sturdiness of steel beneath the surface.

Nothing prepared me for the first night of caring for him in his delicate state, with the eye shield that was to protect his surgical sight. I sat with him on my lap, cradled on a pillow for most of the night.

Nothing prepared me for how he would look at the doctor's office the following day when the shield was removed and the eye examined.
And nothing prepared me for the long journey of watching for complications, the ups and downs of everything that goes along with PHPV.

Six years later, I am emotional remembering it all. Even when Josh is stable, which he currently is, PHPV and its co-diagnoses, is like something sinister lurking around the corner in the darkness. I feel like I can never let my guard down, never allow myself to take a break from being watchful, lest some complication crop up.

This is a picture of Josh when he was 2 days old, before we had knew what his diagnosis was, before he had any surgeries. If you look carefully, you can see the white/grey pupil.

The next picture is immediately after we were called back to recovery.

This Josh and me. How good it felt to have him back in my arms!