Post-Operation

 

When Evelyn returned from surgery she had so many wires and tubes attached to her, keeping her alive. It was so daunting. Her surgery had lasted 5 and a half hours. How a tiny baby, who shouldn't even be in the world yet, can survive such an ordeal is beyond me. The strength and resilience of NICU babies is remarkable. 

She was just so fragile. What you can't see in this photo is that she is on a ventilator, which meant we couldn't cuddle her. All I wanted to do is just hold her tight, my heart ached. We would lay our hands on her in the incubator to sooth her. Premature baby skin has not yet developed fully so should not be stroked as this can cause them pain. Its a horrible realisation as the first thing you tend to do, before you know this fact, is stroke their skin. 

As I mentioned she was on a ventilator, but, as you can see from the photo above, she had all sorts monitoring her and keeping her alive. The top white tube, with tiny numbers on it, was her TAT. I  can't remember what TAT stood for (or if I ever knew in truth), but this is her feeding tube. It was surgically inserted and the numbers are important as the tube must stay at the length at which it was inserted. The surgeons ensure it is in her stomach and that there is no risk of food reaching her lungs incorrectly down the wrong pipe. The tube is inserted through her nose and is stuck down on her cheek to ensure it doesn't move. Obviously, it won't surprise you to hear, that this was her favourite thing to grab! Of course it was, causing a great deal of added stress for her parents. 

In the top right hand corner you can see a couple of black wires that were part of her heart monitors. The white tube that wraps around her wrist with a red light monitored blood oxygen percentage. In her other wrist, with the red tag (and I am welcome to correction from the nurses but this is from what I remember), is her arterial line which monitors blood pressure in real time and for blood gas analysis. Across her belly, just coming over from under her blanket is the line for giving her medications. This was in her leg and she had a splint attached to her leg to ensure it didn't move. 

In the foreground of the picture you can see her chest drain, removing excess fluids from the site of her operation. This was also needed so that when she came off her ventilator and her oesophagus had had time to heal, the doctors could see if there were any leakages. Anything that she swallowed would leak into the empty space where her lung had been and appear in the drain. Now, if her feeding tube was her favourite grabbing toy, this was a close second. She nearly gave her poor daddy a heart attack when he turned to look away from her for only a couple of seconds and the little scamp had pulled it clean out. By the time this happened it was more of a nice to have rather than a necessity so no drama ensued. 

It took a couple of days after her operation for Evelyn to open her eyes again. I was sat just looking at her and soothing her when she did and it took my breath away. Seeing her beautiful dark eyes again completely overwhelmed me with joy. I remember anyone who came to see her just telling them 'she opened her eyes!' I was in awe. 

It has taken me a long time to write this piece. Every time I looked at the photo of her in such a vulnerable and poorly state I just cried and felt incredible panic and sickness. I can't bring myself to share the whole photo. I do share some photos of Evelyn, but I am, also, incredibly protective of her. I struggle with the fact that I was unable to protect her from what she went through in her short life, and ultimately that I couldn't protect her from death. I know I gave her everything of me and she was so loved, but she went through more in 15 weeks physically than I have ever endured in 36 years. So I protect her memory, I protect the photos of her that show her vulnerability, instead of being able to protect her by wrapping her up from the cold or holding her hand crossing a road.