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Monday, August 10, 2009

One more surgery to come. . .

I wanted to share with you the news from Olivia's doctor's appointment this morning. Yup, she's going to have another surgery. The doctor just had to take one look at her poor little eyes to know that they were still in need of some extra care. Her poor left eye is still really bad. The right one is better, but still not great. The doctor said again how bad her eyes were when she had done the 1st surgery. That normally during a probing, you just have to pop through a single membrane to open up a duct, but with both of her eyes, there was just gravel-like stuff all through the ducts and that both ducts were both narrowing, too. She said that they weren't the worst she has seen, but were pretty bad - so needless to say, she was not surprised to be getting a phone call from me that we may need to proceed with other options.

So onto to the other options . . .

The next step that we are going to do is the Balloon Probing where they insert a probe with a balloon that they blow up to a certain size and hardness and pull through the duct to try to open it up, then they are going to do a second step to this surgery (like 2 surgeries in one) and they are going to insert tubes into each duct to help with the drainage initially, but mainly to keep the ducts open while they heal. The tubes will eventually be removed several months later, once the eyes have completely healed. (This can be done in the office so we don't have to go through a 3rd surgery!). So now the only question is whether or not she can fit the balloon into the ducts to open them up . . we'll have to wait and see.

Now for the when . . .

Well, since we wanted to get this all done with as soon as possible and since the economy is the way it is where you can never tell how secure any one's job is - I told her I'd rather do it sooner than later while I still had my insurance and it was already maxed out of pocket for her
(the next surgery would be on the insurance company) - SO, it may be THIS FRIDAY . . . oh my goodness! or next Friday . . . either way, they are going to try to get us in as soon as they can. They feel really badly that it didn't work for her and want to fix her little eyes as soon as they can so she can go outside and enjoy the sunshine with her friends.

Well, as you already read, Grant's business partner just had their baby (early) so, he most likely will not be able to be there for this surgery unfortunately. So, my mom is going to drive up to help out that day so I don't have to try to handle it all on my own. I think I am going to try to push it to next Friday if I can - this week seems a bit too soon to juggle everything - but we'll do what we need to do. The scheduler is going to call me within the next couple of days - I'll keep you all posted.

So, that isn't the news we wanted to hear, but more or less what I was expecting. At least we may have a better solution to get her eyes fixed this time. I'll just keep my fingers crossed that it will work this time.

1 comment:

Clyda and Bryson Jones said...

Just wanted you to know that we are praying with all our hearts that Olivia's tear ducts will be opened sucessfully, heal speedily, and that they will stay open forever. So sorry our precious little Olivia has to put up with all these doings! It will be worth it in the end. Special prayers for her and her surgeon (and her Mom & Dad!) on the 28th.

Love you guys,
Clyda & Bryson