Today we had a pre-op meeting with Amelia's eye doctor. She is scheduled to have surgery to correct the alignment of her eyes this Friday.
She can have her last meal of Pediasure around midnight Thursday night. We can give her clear liquids up until 5:00am. This can be chicken broth, apple juice, etc.
She will go in at 7:00 am to the hospital in the medical center where she was born. This is usually an outpatient procedure and the expectation is that there will not be an overnight stay involved, but they are having it there in an overabundence of caution, due to her complicated medical history.
The actual surgery is scheduled for 9:00 am. She will have general anesthesia for the procedure. They will give her a sedative in the pre-op area to make her "happy" and perhaps even giggly before she gets wheeled off to surgery. I was very concerned she would be screaming and crying when strangers wheeled her away from us, but I was assured that she would be so relaxed, she wouldn't care.
The surgery will be on both eyes. They will cut one muscle in each eye and reattach it further back on the wall of the eyeball with stitches that will dissolve on their own. The muscle will graft on to the eyeball and pull them into alignment. The surgery should last about an hour and recovery should be another hour or so.
The white part of her eyes will be bloody red and gradually get better over the course of the week. She will be given an oral antibiotic (or tube fed it rather) and also an anti-biotic eye drop which will also contain a steroid to help reduce the swelling in the eyes.
She is expected to be alert and active within 24 hours of the surgery. Her eyes may itch and we have to make sure she doesn't try to scratch them. If she can't keep her hands off, we do have the no-nos from back in the day when were patching. Monday is Memorial Day so this will give her some extra time to heal before she has to go back to school. She is not supposed to play outside at school for a couple days just to make sure she doesn't get any debris in her eyes while she is recovering.
Her eyes may be sensitive to light while they are healing. Also she is not going to be able to go to swim lessons and they have advised us not to let her bathe in a tub because she might get dirty water in her eyes. Showering is fine.
That's all we know for now. We have been mentally prepared for her to have this surgery for well over three years now, and really, I think we are relieved that it is finally time to get the surgery done. We hope that this willbe more than a cosmetic success and will also help Amelia to be able to use both eyes together --- a requirement for depth perception.
The surgery is being performed by Dr. Kathryn Musgrove of Houston Eye Associates. We went through several eye doctors before we found her and she has been terrific. Great bedside manner, good with kids, explains everything and spends a lot of time answering questions.
We will keep everyone posted on the outcome of the surgery.
1 comment:
Glad I found the blog again!
Mary Kate's little boy, Ben, had surgery for hypertropia (his left eye was slightly higher than it should have been) when he was almost two, just a couple months back. We were all scared at the thought of the anesthesia, but he did well with that, and the surgery was very successful. Kids with his problem tilt their heads to compensate and we knew the surgery had worked when we saw him holding his head straight for the first time.
The only problem he had was when he was coming out of the anesthesia and had "emergence delirium", which is common with children but unsettling, especially if there are several little ones all coming out of anesthesia at the same time. His eye healed quickly and he was back to his usual active little self very quickly.
We'll keep Amelia in our prayers.
Marie
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