You might think after all we've been through with my daughter's eyes via surgery, implants, and injections that we would be free of a daily regime of drops at this point. You might have taken into consideration the fact that no vision at all, including light perception, is happening in her right eye and precious little remains in her left eye and why would we bother with drops if we've lost pretty much it all?
Further, you might remember we went through the battle with glaucoma, or high ocular pressure for some time and ultimately had an implant placed in her left eye to manage the pressure we couldn't control with drops and oral medication. If you've been here for long enough counting you as one of my most steadfast and dedicated readers, you know that prior to the high-pressure battle, there was a low-pressure fight that went on for several years. The high pressure was such an unexpected change in symptoms I did a literal double-take when her surgeon told us.
All of that is in the past now. One eye gone, the other eye being pressure managed by an implant. Drops done, right? That would be a no. We have four drops we use either daily or on an as-needed basis.
"Right red night" is my daughter's and husband's way of reminding us to do one red drop in her right eye every night. I need to get a picture of her right eye and post it here. Be forewarned though, it's not comfortable to look at as what was a once beautiful iris and pupil has now shrunk down into a small fraction of what it once was. I need to follow up on the atropine drop for her right eye again. The last time I asked we were told to keep doing the drops once per day, although I think it's rather pointless now.
We have steroid drops (pink) twice per day in the left eye and since that eye gives her some tiny bit of visual information, I'm all about keeping those going if they could help or prevent more loss of sight.
Then we have the yellow or blue drops. We would ideally do neither, but we're monitoring her pressure and it's not able to remain in the ideal pressure range without some assistance. One drop per day isn't a bad thing but we're going to see her glaucoma surgeon again soon and see if she has any guidance. We've had to slowly increase those drops from one every few days to one per day and now we're having to use the more powerful drop some days and the milder one on other days.
On balance though we're only doing drops twice per day which is a much, much better situation than six times or even twelve times. I wouldn't want to do drops six times per day on myself. Imagine trying to interrupt your child to do drops she doesn't want to do and doesn't want other people to see her doing them. So things are good. In comparison to when they were really bad.
The Big Boy Update: My son is off to Disney. They left early for the airport heading directly from school. My husband wanted to make sure they didn't run into long bag check lines at the airport. It turned out there was only one person in line when they got there. They're still in the air now.
Tiny Girl Drops Comment: I asked her if she wanted to say anything about her drop. She said, "I have a stinging yellow drop and a pink drop that doesn't sting. I also do a red drop and a blue drop. I do yellow and pink in the morning and blue and red at night."
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