On Friday Calvin had his third eye surgery; it was his sixth
time under anesthesia. I guess maybe it gets easier, but it still is hard to
carry him back to the operating room in paper clothes, put him on the operating
table, and hold him while they strap the mask over his mouth and nose. I sing
to him quietly in his ear and then he goes limp in my arms. I get a kind look from
the anesthesiologist and usually from the doctor. This time, she squeezed my
hand and told me they’d take good care of him. Also this time, the
anesthesiologist was a different one. Up until then we’d had the same guy, most
times with Cal and the one who did my epidural—he cried a little with me when
Cal was three months old and the doctor told us he’d never see. This time the
anesthesiologists’ name was Dawn, which made me comfortable for an absolutely irrelevant
reason. It’s not often you meet a Dawn, so it felt meaningful.
The surgery was to align his eyes. His right eye had always
turned in a little, but was turning more and more the past six months. Since
his vision has improved over the past year, ever since we found the fantastic, more
aggressive pediatric ophthalmologist, she wanted to align the eyes not only for
cosmetic reasons, but because she says there’s a chance he could see at the
same time with both eyes. Statistically, binocular vision is not likely with
his past, but when she said there was a chance, of course we wanted to give it
to him. The disconcerting part about this alignment surgery was that she
actually went into both eyes and loosened the muscles to align them. Allowing
her to go in to his good eye was up to us—she could have done the alignment
just in his one eye, but that type of alignment surgery often doesn’t take as
well as when it’s done with two eyes. When she showed me what she would do with
her giant eyeball model in her office, and how less intrusive this surgery was
than his past surgeries, I felt better. We finally decided to let her go for
the surgery that statistically works much better.
He came through like a champ. The nurses said that just two
minutes out of the operating room he started stirring and asking for Mom, a
hug, and a popsicle, the first of which he got quickly, the third he had to
wait awhile for, but did eventually get. The doctor said the surgery went great—she looked
at the retina, cornea, did a pressure test, and everything checked out well.
She warned us that he’d look like he’d been punched in the eyes for a week or
two. She also said that for the next few weeks his eyes would probably wander
around occasionally. We were prepared for the worst, but his eyes look great.
The right eye doesn’t turn in at all. His eyes are red, but not black around
them, as we’d pictured. I have to put ointment in each eye twice a day, which
is tries my patience and his lungs, but is not as all-consuming as the fourteen
eye drops a day when he was four months old.
We also got some more great news: he doesn’t need to wear a
contact anymore! His eye has been bothered by contacts over the past year—he had
two serious eye infections— and so for the last year we’ve been putting the
contact in every morning and taking it out every night. Before that, he could
wear one for a week. As you can imagine he was happy to hear the no-contact
news too.
So that’s the news on the eye-front. Great news, in fact. I’m
continually amazed at how well his eye has done after we were told he’d never
see and probably have to have it removed from his head. Again I say to
everyone: get second opinions! Get third opinions! We’ve done both and that’s
why he has his eye—a healthy eye, albeit abnormal, but a seeing eye. We thank
everyone for so much support and love we’ve had with this challenge we’ve had
most of his life. And thank you for your unending prayers. They’ve made a
difference. Please keep them up!
For the full story of Cal's diagnosis and initial surgeries,
click here.
For the story of his
second second and third opinion stories,
click here.
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Saying goodbye to him for his first exam under anesthesia-- 3 months old |
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After first surgery-- 4 months old |
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Decorating his anesthesia mask with stickers,
and my clothes with crayons-- 3 1/2 years old |
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Hugging Clark before surgery |
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All set to go to surgery |
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A couple days later...still a bit puffy and red, but back to normal shenanigans |
So awesome.
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