Congenital Ptosis: The Surgery

Our God is so faithful. I'm so glad I have Him to trust and turn to not just on days like today, but every.single.day.

Bright and early this morning at approximately 4:50 a.m. Jason's alarm went off. I actually didn't need the alarm because I had just woken up from the strangest dream ever. About knowing Evan was going to have his eye surgery and there was a great white shark in our bedroom (I think the shark was in our room to keep us from feeding Evan or giving him anything to drink, because I went to bed last night stressed out that we would forget and give him food in the morning) and my mom was in our garage with some ladies from Haiti or Ethiopia or Africa, (I never found out where they were from) and they were doing laundry, and Jason had grown a beard. I know. I didn't want to wake up, it was so awesome.

We had to be at the surgery center for pre-op by 6:30 a.m. I was so grateful to be able to have this procedure done first thing in the morning. I wanted it to be behind us.

Jason was selected to take Evan to get the anesthesia. Jason was back in the waiting room with me in minutes.He said Evan didn't love having the mask forced to his face but he took it like a champ and whimpered just a bit before he was out.

His surgery was scheduled for 7:30, but actually began at about 8:00 and by 8:30 we were called back into the post-op room to comfort our miserable little man. I held him, while Jason fed him snacks, but he cried inbetween bites. Evan did. Not Jason.

By 9:30, we were released to come home.

We took a before picture of Evan this morning, but because Evan was so tired, and the angle was not straight on, the picture really didn't do justice as a good before picture. So I used a picture we took a few weeks ago.

You can see the mark the surgeon put above his eyebrow on his right side so that he knew which side to operate on. Smart man!

His eye is a bit swollen, as expected. However, I do believe that once the swelling goes down, his eyes are going to look the same, for the most part.

When we got home, we fed Evan and then he and daddy cuddled on Dawson's bean bag and watched Baby Einstein: Baby Wordsworth. Jason learned to say "chair" and "ball".

Then Evan napped for about 15 minutes:

Speaking of naps. ...

Whew. I might need a nap. Or some chocolate.

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.

Congenital Ptosis: The Infant Eye Patch

Evan has been diagnosed with an eye condition called congenital ptosis. (droopy eye). When he was first born, we noticed that he was not raising his right eyelid that well. We asked his pediatrician who said she thought it was due to swelling from birth trauma and to give it a week or so. After a week (and several doctor visits due to jaundice) we found that he was still not raising his eyelid. The pediatrician recommended that we see a pediatric ophtamalogist. So. We did.

According to the internet (which one should never ever go to as a source of any sort of information because people are crazy and the next thing you know, you will have diagnosed a sore throat as being irritable bowel syndrome) Evan would need surgery. Although, we did many many searches online about this condition and really didn't find very much. Especially not anything that was useful. So I guess it's a good thing we went to an opthamalogist... His eye doctor said that he is so young, it's too early to do surgery. His eye condition is moderate, not severe (if it were severe, he would be unable to open his eye at all, and without immediate help, would go blind in that eye). Soo at this point in the game we are to:
Have him wear an infant eye patch.

We have to patch his good eye for one (alert) hour, 6 days per week for 8-10 weeks.

This will ensure that his vision does not decline by forcing him to focus with the eye that is slightly covered. At his next appointment, she will determine how he is doing and then we will most likely only need to patch his eye 3 days a week for an hour each day.

At around 10 months to one year, he may need a minor surgery where they will do a suture which is temporary to make his eyelid go up all way. Then when he is older he will most likely have permanent surgery to correct the muscle that is weak in his eyelid.

So that is the story of

Our poor little pirate...