Surgery in 6 Weeks...

I hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July! We spent it with the Wilhelms in Wildwood, NJ. I never wanted to leave! We had a great time. Jack surprised us by eating anything and everything in sight! He was so good the entire time. I am not sure he wanted to come home either!

Check out the

JULY ALBUM!

for pictures!


Jack had a follow-up exam with his eye doctor this morning. He was pleased with how well the eye patching is working. Jack is now using the "lazy" eye almost as much as his other eye! So he is on his way to developing the use of both eyes together (binocular vision) which is very important in life.

The somewhat expected news is Jack will need surgery to correct his eye muscles in his eyes. The patching is not effective in correcting this -- so it will be surgically corrected on August 30...just about 6 weeks away. He needs surgery on both eyes.

Eye muscle repair is surgery to align eyes or correct eye muscle abnormality.

Description

The surgery is most commonly done on children, but is also performed on adults with similar problems.

While the child is under general anesthesia (asleep and pain-free), a small incision is made in the tissue between the eye and eyelid. One or more of the muscles of the eye are strengthened (resected) or weakened (recessed) to allow proper position and help the eye to move correctly. After a few hours of recovery, the child may go home.

Jack will be out of school and therapy for a week due to the risk of infection. He can't go swimming for 4 weeks following surgery either (so we better get all of our swimming in NOW -- lol). He needs to avoid rubbing his eyes and we'll have to put a cream in his eyes 4 times a day.

I would love to hear from anyone else who's child has been through a similar surgery. I am not sure what to expect.

We have several pre-op and post-op appointments scheduled. If the surgery isn't a success, it may need repeated within 6 weeks' time.

Please keep Jack in your prayers. I will update everyone with any new information.

Have a great week!

Edited to add:

Okay, so I found a good article explaining Esotropia (the medical term for crossed eyes).

I thought this was a great way of explaining the patching vs. surgery.

Treatment of congenital esotropia usually requires eye muscle surgery. Before surgery is performed, other factors must be considered. If amblyopia has developed in one eye, this poor vision must be treated right away. This is accomplished by patching the better eye to force the brain to use the eye with poorer vision. Though this will not correct the eye crossing, it will equalize the vision which improves the prognosis for a successful outcome from surgery. The presence of farsightedness must also be detected prior to an operation. Though this is an uncommon cause of esotropia in this young age group, glasses must be tried when there is significant farsightedness present as glasses, alone, may diminish the eye crossing. (See Accommodative Esotropia)

Children do not outgrow congenital esotropia. Surgical correction is usually recommended between six and fourteen months of age. The reasons for correction go beyond the obvious drastic improvement in the child's appearance. When the eyes are misaligned in childhood, binocular vision, or the ability of the brain to use the two eyes together, does not develop. Early alignment of the eyes allows for the development of brain to eye communication which results in enhanced depth perception, fine motor skills, and the best opportunity to maintain good eye alignment throughout life. Even after successful surgery, close follow-up is necessary to detect associated eye problems. Vertical misalignments of the eye, especially when looking to the side, recurrent eye crossing and amblyopia may occur several months or years later.

To read more here’s the link:

ESOTROPIA