Congenital Ptosis: Surgery Discussions And Options

We had the consultation with Evan’s eye surgeon on Monday. We were given some interesting news. Based on the stuff we have read and researched, we weren’t expecting the news we received.

Evan is going to have permanent surgery on his eyelid. We have the date scheduled in March. We have to go in at 7:00. Evan is not allowed to eat anything past midnight the night before! So he’ll be a miserable little mister just before surgery. I'll probably eat his breakfast. Just kidding. They told us food can have a negative effect on anesthesia making the child sick. I'm probably going to ask if I can have some anesthesia.You know, just for fun.

Anyway, The surgeon is going to shorten the muscle in his eyelid and tighten the tendon connected to it as much as possible. That’s it! Isn’t that crazy? Once he’s finished, his eyelid should perform like a regular eyelid. The surgeon said Evan qualifies for this because he actually has a crease in his eye, meaning that his eyelid is 80-90% normal. Most children are required to do a temporary suture called a “sling” because their ptosis condition is so severe that it wouldn’t matter if they shortened the muscle, the muscle is so weak the eyelid would droop anyway. So we were actually encouraged to know that Evan actually qualifies for permanent surgery, and felt this news was good news. The surgeon showed us several "before and after" pictures of surgeries he had performed on other children. Most cases were more severe than Evan's case, but in all of them you could tell a definite improvement.

Also- They said Evan will actually heal completely in just a day or two.

Of course you'll be updated once again after his surgery. I mean, won't you all want to know if they let me have anesthesia just for fun?

 I'll leave you with a few pictures of the little munchkin and what he's been up to:

He gets pretty excited when he stands for a few seconds on his own.. as evidenced by this picture. He sits down very gingerly. I imagine it's because he doesn't want to smoosh the poop in his diaper.

He's rather happy drinking from a sippy cup, unlike Dawson who would scream and throw the sippy and then dial 911.