I've mentioned Grace's congenital ptosis before in this blog post and shared about our visit to OHSU to meet Dr. Ng last February. Basically Grace's right eyelid is droopy which causes her to have vision problems with her right eye. Her eyelid covered part of her pupil so that she could not simply look up with her eyes, but instead had to tilt her entire head (and then would close her right eye) in order to see. The big risk is developing a lazy eye. The last time she had her vision tested in February her right eye's vision was slightly worse then her left eye which isn't good.
We've known that we would be doing this surgery since she was 6 months old but we didn't tell Grace about it until Sunday night. We put Ethan down to bed and then sat her down to talk about having eye surgery. I was prepared with a few library books and we discussed what was going to happen. She had a few questions that night but had a lot more for me all day Monday. We read the books several times and looked at the pictures to familiarize her with what she might see. We even sat down and did a Google search together for what an IV looks like (I found some non-scary photos of kids with IVs) and hospital beds etc. She was mostly scared about having to get a shot and an IV. Basically anything that hurt. We also played with the toy doctor kit we have and practiced taking each other's blood pressure and listening to our hearts.
Monday evening I took a last photo of our beautiful daughter pre-surgery. The ptosis has always been there and shows up more pronounced in photos a lot of the time. That's half the reason I developed an interest in photography...the "professionals" always managed to capture her ptosis more then they could capture her personality.
With all our preparation it wasn't a big shock to drive up to Portland to drop off Ethan with my Mom (thank you 1000 times for watching him for us!!!) and then it was on to the Casey Eye Institute at OHSU. We were told to be there at 11:30 for pre-op and we were there precisely on time (Grace got to wear a bracelet just like we saw in her books!) and sat down for all of 30 seconds before we were called back. Once we were brought back to the ward we were shown to our "room" and the nurse did all the normal procedures. She checked her temperature, blood pressure, listened to her heart, and all that jazz. Then she gave Grace some medicine to drink that would make her sleepy (and possibly not even remember) the rest of the pre-op process. The best news was that Grace wouldn't have to have a shot at all, and they would insert her IV after she was asleep.
We changed her into the child-sized pajamas they provided and she sat on the bed looking very much out of it. She held on to Mingo and Zoe and eventually wound up on Daddy's lap for a bit while we talked to the anesthesiologist and surgeon about what was going to happen. I really liked the anesthesiologist. She was very upbeat and non-threatening and I felt safe leaving Grace in her hands. Dr. Ng was also very nice and explained the procedure again and talked to use about post-op care. Then it was time to settle Grace on the hospital bed again and wheel her to the Operating Room.
It's pretty hard to leave your child at that point. We could give her a kiss and then we had to watch them wheel her in to the operating room. It was about noon when they started surgery and I was pretty hungry so I hunted up some cafeteria food to eat as a distraction. We sat in the waiting room for awhile before Dr. Ng came out to let us know that the surgery was over and she was doing fine and they would come and get us when she started to wake up. I thought it'd be about 20-30 minutes but apparently Grace was really out because they didn't come and get us for an hour. That is a long time to wait let me tell you.
The scariest thing I've ever seen was walking into the Grace's "room" when they had us come back to see her. We knew that her right eye would be very open but seeing her eye bugged out, her mouth open and drooling, and her so unresponsive was really frightening. While David and I tried to hold it together the nurse showed us how to take care of her eye. Then I went down to the pharmacy on the first floor to get her prescriptions filled and David stayed with Grace as she woke up. When I got back she was definitely awake and not a happy camper. She really liked the cold compress on her eye and it was the only thing that seemed to calm her down. We didn't stay in the hospital for too long before we decided that we'd be more comfortable at home.
Grace was in and out of it the rest of the afternoon and evening. We stayed at my Mom's house for a few hours and she rested in her bed with an ice pack. We stayed for dinner and then drove home and put the kids to bed. Grace was up several times the first night. She sat with Daddy from midnight til 1am and got up again at 4am in pain. Pretty much every 4 hours which amazingly enough, is exactly how often her meds could be taken.
The first day home started off the same as the previous afternoon. Grace was in and out of it and not herself, but by noonish a switch was flipped and the real Grace returned. She was frog hopping on the couch and scaring me by jumping around when I wanted her to take it easy and not do anything to hurt her stitches. She didn't nap but went down for bed super easy and was ok until 4am when she needed medicine again and slept in this morning. She's doing better now but her eye will look scary for awhile. She thinks her eye looks like it has makeup on it. At least it's colors she likes!
The last photo was taken on Wednesday. Her eye looks about the same today, maybe a little darker purple. Her eye can almost close but is still pretty open most of the time. It will be a few weeks until it will be able to close all the way and look normal. Hopefully before kindergarten starts!
2 comments:
Glad to hear everything went well and that she's back to her normal self already. That first shot you posted of her is gorgeous by the way!!
I'm glad everything went well! Thanks for giving us all the update!
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