Monday, May 11, 2009

Eye update

Ryan was supposed to be there at 11:15 this morning. The surgery center called at 9:40 and asked if we could be there at 10:15, instead. I told her it wasn't possible since we live almost an hour away. So she asked if we could do 10:45 and I told her that should be doable. Luckily I already had the diaper bag and stuff packed and just had to dress Brooke and get dressed myself. We got there at 10:45 on the nose. We checked in and sat in the waiting room for around 10-15 minutes and then they took us back for the pre-op. stuff. We sat back there for TWO HOURS until they finally took him back!! It was getting extremely frustrating, especially since they called and had us come in early! Ryan almost cried as they wheeled him away, but the nurses were awesome at distracting him and pretending they were going to crash the bed and stuff. We went out to the waiting room and it was less than a half an hour until they came to get us for the doctor to talk to us.

It turns out that the pressure is very elevated in his right eye ("bad" eye). Normal pressure is between 10 and 21 and his was in the high 30s. He gets eye drops daily to control the pressure, but it doesn't seem like they're working anymore. He did NOT have his daily eye drop this morning because they normally don't have us give it to him, but the doctor said that would only probably take it down about 8 points and it would still be in the low 30s or high 20s. The great news is, Ryan's left eye ("good" eye) looks great! Whew! We hope and pray that nothing ever happens to that eye because he seems to have little vision in his right eye. The doctor wants to try switching Ryan's eye drops and see if that helps at all. He goes back on July 13th to get rechecked and let's hope that the pressure has come down. Prolonged high eye pressures can cause vision loss and we want to be sure that any vision he DOES have in his right eye is protected.

Then we had to wait almost 45 minutes until they took us back to recovery to see Ryan. They must've given him more anesthesia this time because I know it didn't take that long last time until we could see him and also in July when he went, he was pretty alert right afterwards and by the time we got in the car to go home, he was acting fine and not groggy at all. He even ate french fries on the way home. But today he was very sleepy yet, even until we left. He fell asleep almost immediately after we got in the car. We stopped at the mall really quick because I wanted to hit The Children's Place for sleepers for Brooke (we don't have one "here") and Ryan rode in the stroller and slept the whole time we were in there. Brooke slept part of the time, too...it was naptime! He woke up when we got in the car and asked if we could go to the mall (he knew we were going there when he was done), lol. We had to tell him he slept through it, but he wasn't upset. On the way home he ate a small bag of pretzels and we got him a burger and fries to eat at home when we got in to town. Right now he's playing Wii Sports : ).

I'm REALLY hoping that when he goes back in July, we have an early morning appointment again because I know it will go much faster! The last 2 times he's gone for this, we had to be there by like 7am and we were in and out much quicker. So here's hoping! We won't find out until the Friday before (the "surgery" is on a Monday) what time he needs to be there. :::fingers crossed:::

P.S. I have a super cute picture on my cell phone of Ryan wearing his surgical cap before they took him back, but I don't know how to get it on the computer : P.

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