Capturing the Hard Times

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My four year old son just had his fifth surgery a few weeks ago. Apollo was born with a double aortic arch, a rare congenital heart defect. Despite being sick much of his babyhood, Apollo wasn’t diagnosed until he was eighteen months old. Since then he has had dozens of visits to Seattle Children’s Hospital, five surgeries (including traveling all the way to Texas for surgery) and countless medical procedures. Apollo is just now beginning to understand a little bit about why he spends so much time with doctors. Looking back over the last four years, I am so very thankful that I have documented these moments with my camera. Apollo won’t remember most of his surgeries and procedures so part of my motivation for documenting this was to help him understand his story as he grows older.

I snapped this photo with my iPhone the day Apollo was diagnosed with a double aortic arch. We didn’t know what to expect when we took him to Seattle Children’s Hospital for his MRI. This image, though just a snapshot, is full of emotion for me. This day was both wonderful and horrible. The day we finally learned why my son had so many health issues, and the day we learned he would need heart surgery.

As we prepared our one year old son for heart surgery over the next few weeks, I knew I wanted to capture his story with my camera. I’ll admit, I still feel awkward at times hauling out my big ‘ol Canon to take pictures of my son at the hospital, but I know I would always regret not having these photos. I try to capture plenty of detail photos when I have my camera at the hospital. I know when I imagined motherhood, I never dreamed I would be sitting in the waiting room under a sign that reads: Heart Center or Cardiac Surgery.

After a very rough night during one of Apollo’s hospital stays, when residents, attending doctors and nurses had been in and out of his room all night, we spotted this sign on his crib the next morning.

This image of my husband would be burned in my mind even without the photo. After Apollo’s first heart surgery, when he was still sedated, my husband stood by his crib holding his hand for hours until a nurse finally brought him a chair. Then he sat, faithfully, until my son awoke.

Apollo recovering from his first heart surgery.

If you’ve spend any time in the hospital with a child, you are no doubt familiar with the ritual of morning rounds. I snapped the photo on the right above with my iPhone. It was hardly an appropriate moment to whip out my big camera, but at the same time I wanted to remember the moment. The fact that no faces are visible seems to genuine to me. So many doctors and residents came through Apollo’s room that most of them remain nameless and faceless in my memories.

This photo was taken six weeks after Apollo’s first heart surgery. He was experiencing complications and endured five days of testing and procedures. This photo was taken in the morning after a day of procedures requiring anesthesia and a long, feverish night.

This photo was taken when Apollo was recovering from his second heart surgery. They put him in a regular bed (instead of a crib) which absolutely dwarfed him. When walking into the room, you almost had to search for his tiny two-year-old form.

We spent a very long ten days in the hospital after Apollo’s second heart surgery. I captured these two photos above with my iPhone. We spent hours looking out that window on the 15th floor, watching the traffic go by and staring at the big, blue sky.

This is one of my all-time favorite photos of Apollo in the hospital. This was only a day or so before he was discharged and as you can see, he was completely over it.

This isn’t how I imagined my son’s childhood as I cradled him in my arms as a newborn but it’s our reality right now. This is his childhood and I am committed to capturing it with my camera to preserve these moments in his childhood just as I preserved his siblings moments.

Renee Bergeron

Renee Bergeron lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and 10 of her 14 children. She blogs regularly about her large family at A Baker’s Dozen & Apollo XIV. Renee is a professional birth photographer and owner of Little Earthling Photography.

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Categorized in: Families & Children, Guest Bloggers