This has been a busy week. Josh has been struggling with an eye infection, which required the additional eye drop that needed instilled six times per day. Originally, it was to be 4 days, when the redness did not go away, I was to continue them and have him seen today. So, today we made the long trip to his pediatric ophthalmologist.
Turns out the eye muscle surgeries Josh had in the past have made it more difficult for Josh's eye to clear inflammation. It is more sensitive than it would be otherwise. I thought that eye was rather tough, since it can handle the not so gentle contact change each week. Not that I try to be rough, it just takes some manipulating to get a contact lens out of someone else's eye.
The plan is to leave the contact lens out of Josh's eye til Sunday. If it is still red, we will call the ped. ophth and see what he thinks.
Just a little perspective in regards to Josh's vision. With his contact lens, his vision is 20/40, which is great considering his diagnosis and all the complications. Today was the 1st his vision was really measured without the contact lens. His vision without it is 20/800. Amazing what a tiny piece of silicone can do! (20/200 in both eyes is considered legally blind.) Is is any wonder that Josh has been very tired this week and easily irritated? He is having to work really hard with his contact lens out.
October 2009, Josh went for a routine exam under anesthesia. We had been through many routine EUAs. They are basically an eye exam under anesthesia, so they can also measure eye pressure and get a good look at the optic nerve. These things can be hard to accomplish with little ones. I went to the surgical center feeling very confident and light hearted, never thinking they would find anything wrong, it was one more thing on my 'to-do list' before I was due to give birth to Trinity. That was the day Josh was diagnosed with aphakic glaucoma.
Since that day in October, I have felt stressed about Josh's eye health. Any bit of redness is cause for concern and sleepless nights for me. Acute glaucoma, or severely elevated eye pressure, has the similar symptoms as an eye infection. Redness, pain, and sensitivity to light. There is no way of knowing for certain, unless we take the long trip to have his pressure tested. Or we start abx drops and they cause the symptoms to go away rather quickly. I often feel like I will never have peace. I feel like I am waiting for the day the meds for glaucoma stop working.
On to Christopher. He was scheduled to have tubes put in his ears this past Monday.
I had everything ready, clothes laid out, special blanket and favorite Elmo toy packed in his backpack. His sippy cup was ready for his post-op clear liquid. Gene said he would wake me at 5:15, and if he overslept, Sarah had her alarm set. (I am not an alarm person, it gives me a headache.) Well, Gene had a cold and took cold medicine the night before and overslept. Sarah turned her alarm off and fell back to sleep. I awoke in a panic at 5:45, with barely 30 mins to get ready and rush out the door.
After I got myself pulled together, hair washed and dried, make up on, dressed, I went downstairs to nurse Trinity. While I was nursing, Sarah was getting Christopher ready to go. I was almost finished when I realized Christopher was undressed again. When I questioned Sarah about it, she said he got banana on his shirt. She fed him a banana before we were to go to the OR!
I had to reschedule the procedure. He will be having it done Nov 1st. When I called the scheduler, she talked a bit rudely to me. At first, I was offended and almost spoke rudely to her. But then I realized we probably did look like goofs since we fed our child before a scheduled surgical procedure. Oh well.
I can laugh about it now, but I was not finding the humor in it on Monday. I know it was an honest mistake, and she had love in her heart for her brother.
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