Loving Isaiah

Isaiah Montgomery Buchanon was born on January 11, 2005 at Vanderbilt Hospital. He was born at 7:08 am, weighing in at 8lbs and 10 ounces and 21 inches long. At 20 weeks gestation, an ultrasound determined that Isaiah’s head did not measure correctly. At 27 weeks their journey of testing, ultrasounds, and the unknown began.

When he was born, the doctors knew they were correct in their abnormal findings. Isaiah’s obvious problems were mitten hands, syndactly of the feet, cleft palate, and his brain was protruding from his skull in the forehead area. After giving his parents a chance to hold him, he was rushed to the NICU. On January 12, 2005 a clinical diagnosis determined Isaiah has Aperts Syndrome. He then spent 11 days in the NICU to establish his feeding and wean him down to a low enough oxygen rate so he could go home. The family went home with oxygen and numerous other machines. His journey of operations began on April 12, 2005. All of Isaiah’s operations have been performed by the staff and surgeons of Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital. To date, Isaiah has been in the operating room around 30 times. The surgeries have varied from minor to very complex. Some trips have been for a simple central line and others have been for major craniofacial surgeries and a tracheotomy was performed on August 30, 2006. He is on a home vent due to central apnea.

With Isaiah’s syndrome come many difficult surgeries. Then with Isaiah being himself come many more complications. Isaiah is developmentally delayed physically and cognitively. Things such as sitting, crawling, walking, and speech are a huge obstacle for Isaiah. Isaiah has very small airways (which go with his syndrome) which has caused huge issues since birth and eventually he was unsuccessful being pulled from a breathing tube, this caused him to have to have a trach. Isaiah also suffers from severe seizures which seem to come with no prediction. Along with these problems comes a whole list which you can read about in the journal on his parents’ website.

Loving Isaiah – Images by Daniel Houghton