Surgery

Everything went FANTASTIC yesterday with Weredesh's surgery!

After several relaxing days in Portland (we've found it to be much more relaxing to be AWAY from home), we showed up at OHSU 6:30am yesterday morning (well, more like 6:45 - we ended up on a WRONG freeway, going the WRONG direction during morning rush hour, ugh!) and promptly went in to get prepped for surgery. After fitting her with some comfy elephant flannel pj's, they gave her a concoction to drink that "made her drunk" as they put it. This freaked me out and it didn't take me long to start bawling my eyes out. For one, Weredesh was just sitting on the bed (and if you know Weredesh, she does NOT sit still), and could barely hold her head up, slurring her already babbled words. I didn't like seeing her that way. But even in her drunken state, she held out her arms for mommy and daddy as they took her away. Apparently they gave her a mask (nitrous?) and knocked her out before starting the IV. All anesthesia and surgery procedures went really well. The doctor came out to talk to us about an hour later saying that he had to make a pretty large correction on her eye muscles, but that they should be very close to straight. The measuring is difficult to get perfectly accurate, and I'm not sure if that's due to her age.

Once we were able to go in, she was sleeping soundly and they let me hold her in a rocking chair until she woke up. I was really enjoying holding her while she slept as I rarely get to do that without her squirming around. She woke and fell back to sleep several times over the next hour and we were given permission to leave, even though she was still pretty sleepy/groggy. They said that the anesthesia was totally gone, but that she was still probably affected by the initial drug given to relax her. What a trooper. No vomiting. No crying! Once we got her in the car, she wanted to watch her favorite video and munch on some snacks and we went back to the hotel. It took her another hour or so before she was steady on her feet again, and then she was back to her old self in no time! We couldn't believe it! No down time? No recuperating? No taking it easy? Nope, time to get busy again. We thought it was funny on the post-op directions where it said please limit to "moderate exercise." Yeah, you try to keep a one year old from doing what she wants to do. This girl's got a mind of her own. So we drove back yesterday afternoon (3.5 hrs.) and she slept most of the way in the car, but as soon as we got home it was like nothing had happened! She was back to being little Weredesh, running around, climbing, dancing, talking, laughing. We put her to bed a little early as I think we were a little more wiped out from worry than she was from the day, and she slept well and looked great this morning!

I'll have pics soon, but when you see her eyes now, they look straight. She does have some double vision which is normal, so when she tries to pick things up she often goes an inch or two to the left or right of the actual object which is kinda funny to watch, but this will subside after a few days. The incisions were made on the inner corners of her eyeballs (not the outer like I mentioned in a previous post), and so the inner whites of her eyes are blood red which will whiten up as they heal. We also have to put antibiotic ointment on her eyes daily to prevent infection.

That's it in a nutshell. Over the next couple of weeks her eyes will heal, the muscles strengthen, and become even straighter. We go for a post-op (back in Portland) on the 29th, where they will then decide whether or not she still needs to wear her glasses. As for now, she's still wearing them, which I actually like because it keeps her from rubbing them and serves as good protection. But she's back to school tomorrow and doing just fine. :)