Surgery Day

Monday, October 2, was the day of Anna's second bilateral eye muscle surgery.  The day itself went well, although we had a bit of uncertainty in the days leading up to Monday because of Anna's cold.  The nurse who called on Friday with our report time (6:15 a.m. ... ugh.) was willing to give it until Monday and then let the anesthesiologists make the final call.

Thankfully, Anna successfully blew her nose in the parking garage so she no longer had her morning sniffles and slight cough by the time we were actually in her pre/post-surgery room.

The anesthesia experience went very smoothly this time around.  Everyone, our family especially, is still pleasantly surprised that Anna doesn't have any nausea when she undergoes anesthesia these days.

The pain and discomfort hasn't been too bad for Anna this time around.  She had a hard time opening her eyes at first, but they are overall less irritated than they were in May.  Perhaps this is because the doctor used completely different stitches.  We didn't know it at the time, but Anna's body reacted very strongly to the material that was used previously.

The main issue for Anna on Monday was tiredness and the fact that she would get a headache when she sat up.  However, these symptoms were gradually decreasing as the day wore on.  Having an awesome sister whose caring and compassionate side showed through this evening certainly helped.  ("Anna, do you think it would be okay if you sat up and colored with me for awhile?")

In spite of all this, we aren't rejoicing yet at the results of the surgery.  It's usually not a good thing when the doctor says, "Well, that was more complicated than I was expecting".

Here's what we know now.  The muscles involved in the previous surgery were still attached, but they had "slipped" by a couple of millimeters.  (Don't ask me how that happens or what exactly that means.)  This shouldn't have caused Anna's eyes to turn as severely as they did, though.  The doctor believes the remaining movement came from an overcorrection of Anna's muscles/brain.  We knew this was a possible outcome of the initial surgery, but were under the impression that it wouldn't happen as late as it did.

So now we wait and see.  I'm not declaring anything a success for at least three months this time.

In addition to the muscle surprise, the doctor discovered a staph infection along Anna's lower right eyelid.  The lid had never looked completely clear after the chalazion was removed, but we were under the impression that it was from those recurring styes.  Turns out we were wrong, but there wasn't much we could have done differently.

The infection was only on the surface and very slow-growing, so the doctor simply "scraped" the infected epithelial cells on her lower eyelid (my skin still crawls as I think about that) and prescribed a stronger antibiotic drop to use.

We will see him again in a week to see how everything is healing.

We appreciate the thoughts and prayers during this time.  Although Matt and I were both very tired on Monday, we made it through fairly easily.  More importantly, though, we have a happy and relatively healthy Anna at home.