We started patching her eyes, 2 hours a daily, alternating eyes each day. Everyone was excited to begin with. They reminded me every morning and Rachel had fun picking out her decorative patches. After more than a year, no progress had been made. One of the dangers of lazy eye is that the depth perception is lost. Rachel was ok but was certainly headed that direction with no progress being made with the patch. I had also noticed that she would close or squint one eye when pointing to something far away. So we decided to have surgery done on her eyes.
The same-day surgery was performed at the Primary Children’s out-patient facility just 20 minutes from our home. I talked with Rachel for several days to prepare her for what would happen and I think she was ready.
Bright and early, on my birthday, we headed for the hospital. They treated her like a queen. Our first stop was talking with a nurse and changing into cute P.J.s .
The next big decision was what to ride in. A car, a bed or a wagon. Rachel chose a wagon. I wheeled her over to a waiting area where they set us up watching “Tangled.” We could have watched a number of different movies or played video games. I’ll tell ya, Primary Children’s totally knows how to make kids feel at ease and like the queen of the castle. Rachel was loving every minute of it. We were also visited by another nurse who would be in the surgery helping the doctor and the anesthesiologist.
Dr. Chen, the anesthesiologist was the one who took her through the doors to the surgery room. Rachel was a champ and went without complaint. Of course she really had little idea about what was going to happen. Then we talked with the doctor who told us the surgery would take about 45 minutes and then we were excused back to the waiting room where do-nuts, bagels and juice were waiting for us.
I don’t remember the name of the surgery. The doctor cut the outside muscle of the eye, slid it back and reattached it. He did it on both eyes. Very intricate. While we waited we did a lot of reading and talking about how to parent our children more effectively.
After almost an hour we were called back to talk to the doctor again and he told us everything went great and she should be waking up in about 20 minutes. Before we even sat down again, they said she was already waking up. Only one of us could go back so I went to be with her.
It wasn’t a pretty sight. She was scared and confused and in pain and crying, A LOT. Poor thing. I didn’t even know if she knew I was there. She wouldn’t keep her hands away from her eyes and had to be restrained in the beginning. Boy is that a hard thing to see. After a few minutes of gut-wrenching wailing, I asked her if she wanted me to hold her. She nodded yes, which was her first indication she heard me and knew I was there.
I picked her up and tried to keep her hands away from her eyes. The nurse gave her a cold, wet washcloth and I.V. meds. The meds must have been pretty strong because within a couple of minutes she was sleeping again. They moved us to the recovery room, where Sterling met us. She was still pretty uncomfortable and was beginning to cry more and more. But she would communicate with us so I felt good about that. They offered a slushie and she ate the whole thing. Then she really started up the crying again. So we decided to just take her home instead of more hospital meds.
The drive home was intense. She didn’t cry too much but I was so worried about her. And I hadn’t filled her prescriptions yet so I had to do that on the way. She sat patiently, whimpering, in her carseat, trying to hold the washcloth to her eyes. I walked into the house with Rachel in my arms and was greeted with balloons everywhere. Tied on strings, hanging from the ceiling, scattered around the floor. After all, it was my birthday. Lunch had been delivered by a wonderful wonderful lady. (Have I said thank you yet? THANK YOU!) Rachel also had her own set of Get Well balloons and other cards and gifts. Especially one very soft stuffed kitty from Grandma. But she wouldn’t open her eyes to see it. She sure kept her arms around it though.
She was happy to be home but wouldn’t take the washcloth off of her eyes. I changed it every so often but she refused to open her eyes. I kept her on a schedule with her meds, which helped and she ate a good lunch, which helped as well. It was like feeding a baby bird. She would sit or lay, with her mouth wide open, waiting for me to drop something in it. I loved every minute of it, actually. The surgery definitely did not affect her appetite. She also slept a lot during the rest of the day, getting the anesthesia out of her system. She still refused to open her eyes or be without a washcloth at all.
She slept well that night. Not a peep. In the morning she had a post-surgery appointment with the doctor. So I gave her a do-nut for breakfast and told her it had pretty sprinkles on it and let her eat it on her own. She opened her eyes just a little to see the sprinkles. She opened them a little more to eat her cold cereal. By the time we left for her appointment (8:45 am), she would open her eyes, gingerly, behind some star-shaped sunglasses she received at the hospital.
At the appointment, the doctor said everything looked ok and Rachel was doing fine. Just what I wanted/needed to hear. We went home and by the end of the day, she was very nearly her usual self. And now, 4 days later, you would never know she had been in surgery unless you looked closely at her eyes and saw the red after-math of the incisions.
Primary Children’s is an amazing facility. I hope I never have to be there again and thank heaven it was such a small procedure. I can’t say thank you enough to everyone who helped. Thank you for the cards and balloons. Thank you for the lunch and dinner. Thank you for being with the children, Mom. I love you!!!
