Surgery

Been a while since I last blogged.  My daughter Jasmine had surgery on her left eye yesterday. The surgery was to correct the strabismus she had been suffering from.  Strabismus is when both or one eye is not aligned correctly. It can cause double vision and headaches and prevent normal vision from developing. If left untreated in some cases it can lead to Amblyopia. That is when the brain ignores the signal coming from one or both eyes. I never knew any of that information before I found out Jasmine needed surgery.

What lead us to the ophthalmologist in the first place.  Was the fact that Jasmine complained of double vision and constant headaches.  After she was checked we were told we had two options, either patch her eye or surgery. The doctor told us that the eye patch would most likely not work in her case. That we could try but he wanted to schedule surgery anyway.  So I was sent home with a box of patches and instructions on how to use them.  A few days after our visit to the office they called and scheduled the surgery for November 5th.  I put the patch on her eye for a few hours each day after school. This went on for a few weeks then we went back to the doctor. There was no improvement at all so we decided to go ahead with the surgery. There were many trips to the doctors office for testing and measurements. Then there was pre surgical testing and getting clearance from the pediatrician. All of this was not only stressful for me but for Jasmine as well. A few time she told me she wished I had not picked for her to have surgery at all.  I explained to her that this was for the best and she wouldn't have headaches or double vision any more. The night before surgery I slep horribly because I was so worried. I knew it wasn't major surgery bit I just could not get my mind to shut down for the night.  The day of surgery was not as bad as I thought it would be. The surgery it self only took a little over an hour and, she was in recovery for about two before we could go home. She had a patch over her eye which I was able to take off later that night. i gave her some Motrin for the pain and she slept on anf off for the rest of the day. She's bouncing back quicker then they thought. Her eye is open fully which surprised her doctor. He said children normally keep the eye closed for a day or two after surgery.  Tomorrow we head back to his office so he can check her eye and see how things are.

I apoligize in advance for the wall of text. I just needed to vent a bit after feeling stressed out for a while.