Surgery in our future.

As I've mentioned before, Dallas was born with a mitendorf dot. This is essentially what happens when the eye is developing very early on in the pregnancy. At one point there is a blood vessel that completely encompasses the eye. As we grow, it recedes and eventually becomes your optic nerve. Well, in some kids when it starts to recede it can leave a dot on the eye. Sometimes this dot can then turn into a cataract. Which is exactly what happened with Dallas.

We went a couple of month ago back to the eye doctor, only to find out that he had something called ambliopia. His brain was shutting off the eye with the cataract in it, and his vision out of his right eye was 20/250. Meaning he could see at 20 feet what the normal person could see at 250 feet. it was HORRIBLE. So we started patching his GOOD eye trying to get his brain to pick up the bad eye. Its been a struggle, but we've come all the way up to 20/60 vision. We're aiming for 20/40 vision, since that's considered driving vision, because once you do the surgery you can't correct any more, all you can do is try to work with what you have there.

We were just into the doctor this last week, and he's still hoovering at 20/60 vision. And they now feel that its the cataract stopping him from gaining any more ground out of that eye, so we must now talk surgery. Something we've known was coming for a while, and something we've kind of had time to prepare for, but still scary when you think of it as surgery on your child's EYE.

The doctor covered everything with us, how it would go, how he would be completely out, not just sedated, and how it would be done at the best eye institute around. All good things! What parent doesn't want the best for their child right? We asked all our questions, and covered everything we needed to cover, and agreed that we'd wait for surgery until summer, when he wasn't in school, and when it wouldn't effect anyone but us here at home. Pediatric cataract surgery is alot different than adult surgery. Its far more complicated. I'll spare all the details, and just leave it with we'll have to be doing an eye shield for 2 weeks, antibiotic drops for 2 weeks, steroid drops for 1 month, no swimming for 2-3 weeks, no running, or rough housing for close to a month, the list could go on and on. NOT something you'd want to do to a 7 year old while still in school, especially right at the end of the school year when everything is about having fun!

We agreed that we'd patch him for 7 more weeks, and then meet up again, and see if we've come any closer to that magic 20/40 number. Chances are we won't have, but we're hoping and keeping everything crossed.

So we have some official dates:

June:

13th: measuring his eye to find out what size lens they will place since this surgery can only happen once.

16th: pre op with his regular doctor before surgery since he'll be put out.

19th: SURGERY DAY. Surgery is at 7:30 am, but we have to be there at 5:30 am.

20th: One day follow up to remove the padding, and check things out.

27th: One week follow up to see how things are healing.

July:
22nd: One month follow up to make sure everything healed ok, and that things are going well!




So, its going to prove to be a busy time. . .and scary. I mean they're cutting into my kids EYE here! There's more to it that makes it scary, and again, those are the details I'm sparing here. But of course I'll put on my brave face, and be the all supporting mommy here, because I know that that's what he needs.