Kinley’s third eye exam was this morning.
This time she didn’t respond well to the drops. Her heart rate dropped shortly after the first round was administered, but she recovered on her own.
Mom knew she couldn’t bear to be in the room this time. We escaped down the hall for breakfast while we waited. On our way back, we saw the doctor heading for Kinley’s room. We scrubbed in and found a vital monitor on the opposite side of the pod from her room. As Kinley cried out, we watched her heart rate climb until the alarms started to ring throughout the pod. After a minute or so, the cries subsided and the alarms stopped.
Our nurse popped out and invited us into her room. Tears streamed down mom’s face as she rushed in and the doctor’s assistant handed Kinley to her.
The diagnosis was very similar to the previous exam. Her retinopathy of prematurity is still classified as stage one. The doctor didn’t expect improvement in only two weeks, but he wanted to be sure it wasn’t getting worse.
Kinley recovered better than we expected from the exam this time. Her heart rate and oxygen levels stayed close to normal. She did pretty well with all her bottle feedings throughout the day, though we generally let her sleep more between each.
Late in the day we noticed the deep, outside corner of her left eye was blood shot. We’re told it should be okay, but they’ll watch it.