Emilie's surgery yesterday

Well, in the tradition of collecting surgical signatures, Emilie had both of her eyes signed yesterday by Dr. S. about an hour before going into surgery. Right before she went in, the nurse read her onsie p.j. which said, "I heart my auntie." The nurse said Emilie must have a pretty big fan, I told her that I know our little girl has lots of fans, but Aunt B certainly is one of the biggest ones.

Both eyes were checked to see which was worse and which needed to be operated on.

The left eye won that contest with a pressure of 35, which is how high her eye pressures were when she was born. The right eye is still registering at high normal which was 19. Dr. S. said today in Emilies post-op visit that if the pressure goes up in the right eye, then we would consider surgery for it, but that he is satisfied with how it is doing right now, so he prefers to leave it alone.

Emilie now has a shunt in her left eye. It took about 15 minutes to go in. The shunt makes her eye look like she's been in some type of horrible fight, and the doc said that we will always see a little white bubble when she looks down or over that is where the tube is. He did see that the tube was placed and laying correctly today, all of which is good news. They did also go ahead and check her left eye pressures and they were registering in at 16 even while she was screaming. Doc said that he expects that they are close to 5 when she isn't screaming, which is good.


As Emilie heals, she will gain some scar tissue that will make pressures go back up in the left eye. It was his expectation that she will have to re-start some type of eye drop again in around a month. The last conversation that I had with the doctor this morning was hopeful that Emilie would re-gain some vision in her left eye, but that her vision would probably not completely restore for the left eye. We keep guarded optimism that this is the case. We continue to be thankful that her right eye stays the way it does, this is good news that things are under control in her right eye and that is what we do want to hear.

Emilie will undergo anesthesia again in a month to check her pressures while she is asleep (which is when it is most accurate). Emilie immediately following surgery was pulling her patches off. She may not get perfect vision from that left eye, but she sure knows when it is covered up. Other than dealing with some pain, she has been a happy happy baby today. She smiled every minute of the last hour just before she drifted off for nap.

We are thankful to have another surgery down and to be one step closer to a better seeing child.