Grace visited the Casey Eye Institute up at OHSU on Monday morning and we met with the doctor that will be performing her eye surgery this summer. My Mom was gracious enough to let us spend the night with her on Sunday night which got us at least an hour closer. The appointment was at 8:30am which meant that I got the kids up at 6:30am in order to eat and get there without rushing. Mom was a life saver! She drove us up to OHSU and dropped Grace and I off while she kept Ethan for me. That let me concentrate on Grace and her appointment which I sooooooo very much appreciate. That and not having to figure out OHSU parking pretty much made my day!
The doctor met us in the waiting room and was very good with Grace. He's not specifically a pediatric eye surgeon so I wasn't sure how he would handle her. We went back to an exam room and Grace performed the eye exam by reading letters for the first time. Last year I think we used shapes and the times before that they determined her vision by having her look at moving toys across the room while they looked into her eyes with a variety of prisms. He determined that she has 20/40 vision in her right eye (the one with the ptosis) and 20/30 vision in her left eye. This is the first time there's been a difference between the eyes, which makes me feel that the surgery is definitely coming at a good time.
The eye doctor somehow managed to measure her eyelid muscles and determined that Grace does have some muscle in her right eyelid which is a good thing. Then he explained what the surgery would consist of and what the expected outcome will be. The surgery will basically put permanent stitches in her eyelid muscles to help keep the muscle taut. The downside to this is that her right eyelid won't match her left eyelid when she looks down because it will be pulled up. Apparently she's destined to have mismatched eyelids! At least this surgery will give her the ability to look up without moving her entire head. Since there are still a few more years of brain/eye development left she will benefit from doing the surgery now.
OHSU only does pediatric eye surgery on the second Tuesday of the month which gave us three dates to choose from this summer. Both June and July are out due to the rodeos so August it is. The big bummer for Grace will be that she can't put her head under water for a month after the surgery so swimming the second half of the summer will be out. I'll just have to make sure that we do swimming lessons the first half of summer!
I don't plan on really talking about the surgery with Grace until the week prior. I don't want her to dwell on it for six months or have time to get scared of it. Anyone who has experience with a preschooler having a surgery I'd love to hear how you handled it!
1 comments:
You should talk to Dominic. He had the same surgery done, but on both of his eyes. His was a little different though. They pulled muscle from his quad to use in his eyes to pull them up. He taught himself how to move his eyelids with his eyes. Although he was 13 when he had his surgery, I'm sure he'll have some amazing insight.
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