So sadly our stay in special care will be fairly short lived for the timebeing 😦 Savannah had her follow up eye test and her eyes have deteriorated so she needs to have laser surgery and will go back to ICU for this tomorrow morning. I am sure the ICU nurses were missing her anyway. It feels like a game of snakes and ladders where you spend ages getting to the top and close to the finish line, only to land on a snake that sends you all the way back down the board again. So it’s farewell special care, go directly to ICU, do not pass Go, do not collect £200, don’t even bother looking in HD on your way past, and please keep your arms inside the car for the duration of your ride.

A summary of the science part…. The eyes continue developing right up till full term with blood vessels spreading out toward the retina. Retinopathy of prematurity is where abnormal blood vessels grow at the edge of normal blood vessels supplying the retina and can form scar tissue. Changing oxygen requirements can confuse the body so the forming of the blood vessels can be affected. Laser surgery is used to treat underdeveloped areas of the peripheral retina or help stop growth of abnormal vessels.

And the surgery will hopefully stop the damage – so there shouldn’t be any long term effects on her sight. There is a risk of further laser surgery or operation if this is unsuccessful but it seems fairly common and standard so fingers crossed she only need it once.

She will have the surgery on the neonatal unit but she will have to be intubated (back on the ventilator) and sedated for the surgery, be nil by mouth and have to head back to intensive care for surgery and recovery.

The surgery itself is fairly common in premature babies but might well have an impact on her breathing.  D’oh!

So she will get transferred again tomorrow morning and fingers crossed she recovers quickly, gets her breathing back on track and gets back to SC soon! Let’s hope we don’t lose our spot and have to wait for a new space to open up in SC too.

Here are adorable pictures of Savannah to end the post on a happy note 🙂