"Do her eyes look crossed to you?"
"Maybe," my husband said.
Back in August, Jaycee had her yearly eye exam. Everything checked out fine. But, after a horrific illness that landed Jaycee in ICU for three weeks on a ventilator, it seemed like something happened to her eyes too.
I hoped I was wrong. But, her teacher and my friend confirmed what I thought I was seeing. Jaycee's eyes are crossing while she wears her glasses.
I thought it would go away. I thought her body needed more time to heal from that life threatening illness. I gave it some time while we sorted through more pressing health issues. Then, I called for an eye exam.
Last week, we drove to our usual eye center. "Why are you back so soon?" We were asked, as Jaycee went right to the examination chair. In less than a minute, the examiner said, "You are right. Her crossing is back and is pretty bad."
Her crossing has a fancy name. Strabismus. We know this diagnosis. When Jaycee was a baby, she was diagnosed with strabismus. Her poor little eyes would turn in and be crossed. She had surgery when she was under 2 years old on both eyes to fix the problem. And the problem was fixed, until a few months ago. The crossing can cause problems like double vision or poor depth perception. It explains why she is hesitant when going down stairs.
The eye examination led to surgery this week. Today actually. She was given loopy medicine before the surgery so she would be calm. She was taken back to surgery. In 90 minutes, we were able to see her again. She was sleeping when we saw her at first.
This time, Jaycee just had one eye muscle shortened on one eye. After surgery, she had some bloody tears. (I knew to wear a red shirt this time!) Her eye is puffy and red. She was groggy for several hours. In time, we'll know just how successful the surgery was. Hopefully, it will be the last time we deal with this.
No comments:
Post a Comment