The Princess' Eyes

We took the princess to the eye doctor yesterday for her follow up exam. Ricky was able to take off work and go with me to this appointment (finally). This was the only doctor he had not met so far...he was glad to go and I was so glad he was with me once we arrived.

Before I tell of the appointment, I should tell our sightings...we have noticed she has been turning her right eye inward for awhile now, hence the repeated visits to the eye doctor. Now for the past couple of weeks, we have noticed she is also turning her left eye inward but it is at the same time as the right eye. We have been thinking it was getting worse instead of better even though we have been putting drops in her left eye once a week (this is supposed to be like patching the eye but she won't keep a patch on her face so we had to go this route. It makes her left eye really blurry so that she is forced to use her right eye. It is supposed to make her right eye stronger). So here is what we learned at the visit...

Laney did great for Dr. Eyeballs. He said it was the best reading he had gotten on her so far. He saw her right eye turning inward lots of times and said to us that he thinks it is getting more pronounced. We agree. So since her vision is great and she is not far-sighted, glasses or bifocals are not an option for her. (that is good and bad...lol. if she had vision problems, glasses would be the first thing to try and it usually works but since no vision problems, we can't try that route) He said sometimes they will try a botox injection but that is a temporary fix and he doesn't think we should try that and neither do we. She is way too young to start cosmetic surgery...LOL! His recommendation is that she have surgery. I almost cried when he said it even though in my heart I knew we were headed that way. The thought of my baby girl having surgery is just scary. I know we have been so blessed and fortunate that she didn't have to have heart or intestinal surgery but it is still hard. We have had ear tubes but that was a hard day for me too. I can't imagine what other parents go through with the major surgeries. We are so thankful we haven't had that (yet...you never know what the future holds). So below I will post an explanation of what is wrong with her eye and some information about the surgery. He said he anticipates her having the surgery within the next 6-12 months. (we have to wait until she is using both eyes equally and a few other things he mentioned but I forgot.)

*Laney has what is called strabismus but the type of strabismus she has is called esotropia (this means her eye drifts inward).

*Having eye muscle surgery will strengthen the eye muscles which changes the alignment of the eye

*The surgery is considered outpatient and she will be put under general anesthesia. She will get to come home the same day. There is no patching of the eye required afterwards. We will only have to use antibiotic eye drops (this is the normal protocol...something could always change or go wrong)

*The surgery consist of Dr. Eyeballs making an incision in the tissue of her eye called conjuctiva to get to the sclera (wall of the eye) to reach the muscles that are attached there. He will then cut the tissue and reattach in a different location (this is called recession).

*Dr. Eyeballs will cut on the eye itself, not the skin around the eye and the eye is NOT removed from the socket during this procedure.

I got all this information from this website: http://www.childrenseyefoundation.org/getdoc/7efd480b-4e92-42a5-84ec-9b813054ae95/Patient-and-Parent-Guide-to-Strabismus-Surgery.aspx

It has lots of information so check it out for more information. I gave just a bare bones overview explanation of what happens.

Dr. Eyeballs wants us to start putting the drops in her eye every other day for now instead of just once a week. We return in 4 weeks for a follow up and they will dilate her eyes at that exam to recheck her vision and so forth again.