At Pierce's eye appointment back in January, it had been two months since he started wearing his patch covering his left eye (with hopes to strengthen his right eye from drifting center so much). At his appt the doctor said that the good news was that the patch turned his vision back on in his right eye. The problem with lazy eyes and not catching them in time, is that the vision shuts off and the brain quits using that eye. So the patch was to make his brain start using his right eye again. Bad news was that there was more going on that just that. Either glasses or eye surgery was the next step to fix the problem. The doctor said that the patch did what it needed to do, turned the vision back on, but his brain was still not using both eyes together at the same time. So the doctor dilated his eyes to see if glasses would be the solution....NO. And to be quite honest, I was a little relieved. I didn't really want to battle my one year old with glasses. The good thing is that his vision is great, he has two strong eyes so glasses would do nothing for him. So eye muscle surgery was next....scheduled for March 6th! I originally thought they were just doing it on one eye, but when we went in, I found out he was getting surgery on both eyes, whoa child.
Morning of March 6th...we checked in to the Phoenix Children's outpatient center at 6 AM (that is super early for all of us). Pierce couldn't have anything to eat past midnight the night before so I wasn't excited about that, making him wait for his bottle that morning but he was actually fine with it. We didn't get called back until 7 AM to start the process. We met with his nurse, his eye doctor (his now surgeon), and the anesthesiologist. I was very impressed by the whole process, they take good care of these children. We undressed him and put on his gown, unlucky Pierce got the purple one :) He was happy as could be, totally unaware of what was about to happen (I think the saddest part).
Adam and I were both a little nervous with him getting put under hoping he wasn't allergic to any medicine but his doctor reassured us he'd be in good hands. They took him at 8 AM while we went back out to the waiting room and by 8:30 they came back to get us cause surgery was over! It really was a quick one. The doctor said it was perfect timing and that he was very happy we caught it early. His inner eye muscles on both eyes were tighter than they should have been which is why both eyes were pulling center and would have been harder to correct as he got older. The doctor cut open the whites of his eyes (between his eye ball and tear duct area) and then went through and stretched the inner eye muscle on both eyes. He put a stitch in both eyes and he was good to go. The doctor brought us back so we'd be there when he woke up. This was for sure my least favorite part, walking in and seeing the nurse holding Pierce, all cuddled up in a white blanket, and completely out of it looking so not like himself. My poor boy!
As he came to he wasn't too happy, which is expected of most I guess. He was so sad :(
I gave him a bottle, they took out his IV, we got him dressed and home we went.
Pierce was exhausted from waking up super early and surgery so slept for the next five hours. I had prepped myself for the worst, expecting this miserable hard baby for the next few days. And Pierce was just the opposite. He woke up from his nap and pretty much acted like it was another normal day.
This is his favorite thing lately, putting his blanket over his head...over and over again.
He had a bath that evening and I still couldn't get those two marks off his forehead, marks from the doctor showing which part of the eye they were cutting into. Funny. But seriously, you would have never known that that day and the rest following that he just had his two eyes sliced into. Pierce you amaze me!!!
This is the day after surgery (March 7th). The blood seeped into the outer part of the right eye but really, this is the worst they looked. When he looks out in either direction, you can see the dark stitch in there and the inner part did look all tore up, but other than that, he recovered like a champ. (The doctor said it would take a few days or weeks for his eyes to move out center but this picture already shows it looking better :)
First his tongue-tie clipped, crazy skin problems, allergy issues, and then eye surgery, YOU ARE A CHAMP, little man!!! Especially for being the happiest little guy I know!
8 comments:
Aww poor kiddo! I would have been a wreck. I remember kingston having surgery for ear tubes and it was really rough right after he woke up. So glad he was doing better after the nap. I love how resilient kids are!
Poor little guy! He is a trooper for going through all that!
Oh, that makes me cry! One, I have two kids with lazy eyes and both wear patches every day (it's been years!) and two, my 3 year old has that surgery coming up most likely since patches aren't helping as well as they should. That doesn't sound fun--but kids are amazing! They are waaay better at handling things sometimes than us adults!
So sad! Hopefully this surgery will do the trick. You're kids are all so cute!!
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