Eye See

After several weeks of patching, Nicholas followed up with his ophthalmologist where we learned that his patching regiment had done next to nothing to correct his eye. His left eye was still turned in pretty severely and the ophthalmologist was concerned that if we waited much longer, the possibility that Nicholas could lose his vision was high. Basically, because the signals coming from his left eye did not match with the signals (images) from his right eye, it would be possible for his brain to turn off the left eye to reduce confusion. In that case, the left eye would stop working and he would be blind in that eye. So, the doctor wanted to schedule the surgery.

He wanted to wait to hear from Nicholas's neurosurgeon first, so that we could be certain that the pressure inside Nicholas's head was within normal ranges and that pressure changes weren't causing the issues with the eye, and luckily, we just happened to have the annual follow up/ CT scans/ shunt series scheduled. As I blogged about earlier, that went very well and Nicholas was labeled stable by his neurosurgeon office - unless something happens (everyone knock on wood!), they would see him in a year. With the all clear from neurosurgery, we contacted the surgery scheduler at the eye doctor and Nicholas's fourth surgery was scheduled.

Today was his pre-op appointment and he was deemed fit to move forward with the surgery. Again, we have lucked out by getting matched with one of the best physicians in his field in Orlando. The eye doctor works specifically with children with neurological issues and has been performing this operation for over 20 years.

This is quite a common procedure, and also a fairly easy one (compared to the brain surgery and g-tube placement/nissen surgery he's had previously), but of course, it's still surgery. The ophthalmologist will be making a small incision on either side of his left eye. On the inner part of his eye, where his eye turns in, the muscle will be detached and reattached further back. The muscle on the outer side of his eye will be either folded and stitched to increase tension (the preferred method) or will be shortened and reattached. This will hopefully cause the muscles to pull his eye back into the correct alignment. Many people we know have either had the surgery themselves or have children who have, typically with fairly good results. The surgery has approximately an 80% chance of correcting the alignment issue with no further issues. It's possible to over or under correct, in which case we would try patching again and if that doesn't work, he would need to have surgery again. We're not going to look that far into the future though - we're going to just look at next Friday. He's scheduled to arrive at the surgery center at 6:15 a.m. on Friday, July 1st. The surgery will take around an hour (unless - in true Nicholas fashion - something strange comes up), and he'll be home that night. Everything I've heard, it's likely to be one of the easiest surgeries he'll have.

Thoughts, prayers, good wishes, whatever floats your boat are always appreciated. Send a little thought towards Orlando next Friday morning!