The last time I wrote about things in my daughter’s eyes I had nothing but bad news to report. When we saw Dr. Trese after her evaluation under anesthesia he said he wanted to see us the following day at the end of his schedule. He was going to think about her situation and look up some things that he remembered from over a decade ago. When we did see him yesterday afternoon, he had a different plan and it was one that included the possibility of improving her vision.
First, those folds in her retinas that have scar tissue behind them have options. There is a procedure in which an incision is made at the edge of the retina. It can be folded back and the scar tissue can be cleared out. However, this isn’t the best option for my daughter because small children have a larger scarring response so he’s not going to start with that approach.
The ocular pressure can be raised through injection of substances that will inflate and hold the eye in place. Dr. Trese’s plan is to take her into surgery on this coming Monday the 21st of December to address one of her eyes. He did some testing and is going to do the procedure first on the right eye. That eye seems to be used less by her and the left eye—although it appears less-functional under the microscope—and he wants to preserve the precious vision she has in her left eye until we determine if the procedure is helpful.
He’ll remove part of the vitreous from the back half of her eye and replace it with silicone oil. He will then inject Healon into the front portion of her eye to help stabilize the large lens she has. He’s concerned the zonules that hold the lens in place and pull on it for focusing purposes may be fragile and he doesn’t want to strain them if possible.
This procedure will have give the right eye much better ocular pressure and the combination of silicone oil and better pressure may help flatten the folds of her retina which may increase her vision. The better pressure may also help stabilize and/or return the other functions of the eye to normal.
He’s going to do the right eye first, having us return in January right after the new year to see how things are progressing. If her vision is improving and she is showing good results from the procedure, he will consider doing the same thing to her left eye.
I am anxious but excited we may have a path to improve her vision. My husband had a good idea today: we patched her right eye to see how well she could function without it because it will be uncomfortable and patched for a period of time. She was able to move around quite well without the right eye. That’s bad news for what she’s seeing today in the eye but it does make us feel more comfortable about having the procedure.
We’re working with all the doctors here to coordinate the overall effort with this large team that has worked so hard to try and return my daughter’s vision. We depart on Sunday for a long drive north.
The Big Boy Update: Grandpa was talking to my son about how he was five. Grandpa said, “I’m even older than five.” My son said, “Grandpa, you’re older than all the numbers.” Ouch.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: We put a patch on my daughter’s right eye. We put an Angry Birds bandage on top of the patch and she was excited to have it on her face. Soon enough she’s going to not be happy to have things on her eye, but for now we were able to make it fun.
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