Strabismus surgery & snow

Ok so the 2 topics really have nothing to do with each other but that is what has been happening around here. As most of you know, Mikey has a condition called Strabismus (street name ~ Lazy Eye) which is defined as :

Strabismus is a condition in which the eyes are not properly aligned with each other. It typically involves a lack of coordination between the extra ocular muscles that prevents bringing the gaze of each eye to the same point in space and preventing proper binocular vision, which may adversely affect depth perception. Strabismus can be either a disorder of the brain coordinating the eyes or a disorder of one or more muscles, as in any process that causes a dysfunction of the usual direction and power of the muscle or muscles.

He had surgery this past Thursday to straighten his left eye out when he is wearing his glasses. Well he actually had surgery on both eyes. We had the surgery done at NYU. Thank goodness his Dr. is affliated with NYU. We are so familiar with the hospital so we felt more comfortable having it done there. And he is the most wonderful Dr. How many Drs. give you their cell # after surgery and say call anytime day or night. Not many. The surgery was on the same floor he had his palate surgery on. Heck, we even saw Dr. Cutting after he was finished with a palate repair!

The surgery was pretty simple and straight forward. It took about 1 hour ~ start to finish. They gave him what we call Happy Juice before surgery to relax him. He had it before cleft surgery too. Boy did it relax him. It made him down right loopy. He was slurring his words and had no control over his body.

I had to take him into the OR and stay until he was under the anesthesia. I squeezed myself into the surgical moon suit and lovely stylish headwear they gave me and took my only child into the OR and then left him. Now I had done this when he had palate surgery. Same moon suit, same head gear. But something was different this time. Maybe it was because he was older. Maybe because he will remember this one. Maybe because it wasn't Dr. Cutting working on him this time. I don't know. I can't really explain it.

Anyway, everything went fine. Once he was out of surgery and awake we were allowed to see him in the recovery area. This was the hard part. We knew from the palate repair that he is pretty cranky coming out of surgery. Hell, can you blame him? The Dr. had told us that his eyes would feel like there was an eyelash in his eye that he couldn't get out. UGH! That drives me insane. I can't imagine how it felt to him. All he did was cry and try to rub his eyes. Of course he wasn't allowed to rub them so it was a fight to get him to stop. We gve him cold wet towels to put on his eyes. That worked a little. The only combination of things that would calm him down was a shot of pain killer (I was about to ask for one myself LOL), a TV with a construction video, a couple of toy trucks he got to keep and a HUGE LifeSavers ice pop that the lovely nurses were kind enough to give him. Thank goodness for them. Who doesn't love the bearers of drugs, toys and sugar!

At that point he calmed down, sat on my lap, watched the video and ate his ice pop while we waited for the IV to finish. When the IV was done he was ready to go. Got him dressed and took him home with the only restrictions being we had to wait 24hrs to give him a bath, no swimming for 2 weeks and no eye rubbing. We also have to put a cream in his eyes before bed. He isn't too happy about that.

His eyes will be bloodshot for awhile and he has disolveable stitches in there. It will also take some time for his eyes to adjust and straighten out. But all that matters is that he is OK.

Here are a couple of photos of what his eyes look like. They aren't the best. I couldn't get him to sit still.

He was pretty uncomfortable that 1st day but the next day he was his old self. Just in time for the snow!