Sunday, September 24, 2017

Jesse has eye surgery - Days 3 - 7

Heading into day 5 now, and Jesse has been a trooper.  He isn't rubbing his eyes much and they are healing well.

Day 3 - 2 days post-op

Day 3 we visited Dr. Granet.  This is now 2 days post-op and we were eager to see if he would be cleared to go home.

First, just let me say again how much we love Dr. Granet.  Yes, he's usually running late.  A lot late.  Several hours.  But he spends so much time with his patients.  On this day he was in surgery all day but he was gracious enough to see us afterward.

We spent nearly 45 minutes with Dr. Granet going over the procedure, seeing how Jesse was healing, talking about the next few weeks, and 'worst case' scenarios.  He explained that he only cut and reattached the muscles but he didn't remove any muscle, so anything he did could be undone.  He also didn't touch the obliques, so if Jesse still has any type of head turn, we can go in and use those muscles to correct that.

I did make note of my concerns that his eyes don't seem in sync with each other.  He looked and when Jesse is looking straight on they are aligned well.  As for looking side to side, we just have to wait and see how they heal.  The left eye is certainly more "tight" than the right and you can tell especially if he looks to one side or the other.  The eyes go immediately out of sync.  How that heals over the next few weeks will let us know if there are any issues we have to go in and fix.  (probably more socially than vision).  He does not have strabismus (where one eye is pegged inward or outward), but if the movement doesn't sync up for side to side vision, we may explore our options for a second surgery.  We knew going in that was a possibility.

As for Jesse's null point, those are pretty well gone.  He hasn't looked hard to the right or chin down.  So that's awesome!  That was the main thing we wanted to correct.  Again balancing eye movement with null point.  Sometimes you can't have it all.

so brave.  first time using the machine.

Day 4 - 3 days post-op

I made a short video showing Jesse's eyes at the end of day 4.  As you can see, the horizontal movement is still there and probably will be to some extent forever.  Nystagmus surgery doesn't always stop the movement.  It may dull it down, but the goal of the surgery to correct the null point(s).  To make it so his best vision is facing forward.  I always said if his null point were to the front I would never do surgery just to correct the oscillation of the eyes.

His left eye still won't open as far as the right and the eyes are still very red.  As for how Jesse reacts, he honestly couldn't care less.  He is happy, he's playing, he doesn't notice except for an occasional rub which Mommy reminds him not to do.  He will still have the eye ointment for the next 5-ish days.  (applied at night when sleeping, so there's no fuss)



As a reminder, here are some pictures of Jesse before surgery.



chin down as far as it can go to see what's in front of him

looking for pasta in a sea of vegetables

using the right null point


To jump to the next post, click HERE.

To jump to the previous post, click HERE.

To follow our story from the beginning, click HERE.

No comments: