Sunday, April 19, 2009

Let me first just say, "Whew!"-- I am so glad that's over! I am also so grateful for my parents and Mike's parents for being there for/with us and for my amazing cousin who has been letting us stay at her place each time we have to go see Kale's doctors. Having family there to help is an amazing thing. It should never be taken for granted. The same goes for friends--who in a sense are my family.

Okay.

So Kale's surgery went very well. It took about five hours but the doctors came out every hour or so to fill us in. Basically they opened up his eyes, took a look around and found that his left eye (the one that's always been in question) is very unorganized in terms of structure, it is all white--no color, no vision and had a lot of tissue attached to it. They separated all the tissue and then had an ocularist come in and fit both eyes with conformers. Actually, the conformers they had were too small so she had to run back to her office a few blocks away, make some new ones and then come back and put them in.

Right now, Kale is still bandaged up a bit so we haven't been able to get a real look at everything, just a tiny peek at weird angles. We can see the "stem" of the conformers sticking out. The ocularist let us know that the stems are a lot wider than normal because they want to keep his eyelids from fusing themselves back together. Dr. Scruggs is the one who performed the surgery and will perform any future ones and I absolutely love her. She is everything one could want in a doctor. She specializes in Ophthalmic Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery and did let us know that Kale will have to undergo some eyelid reconstructive surgery in the future in order for his conformers to fit properly and also any other prosthetics when he is older.


Anyway, I don't know if I'm leaving anything out or not. Like I mentioned earlier, Kale's eyes are still covered up but we were told that after 2-3 days if the bandaging and stuff hasn't come off on its own, we can take it off. We tried soaking the tape to get it off, but it's stuck on his skin pretty good. Not sure how I'm going to get it off. If I weren't so terrified of hurting him or tearing his skin, I'd just take it off quickly but just the thought of it makes me cringe in pain. We were given some ointment to rub on his eyelids so I know the stuff has to come off soon...

As for a follow-up appointment, that is on the 27th. I think they're going to replace the conformers, too. We'll see.

Kale is doing great, though. He is so tough! The surgery took place Friday and by Saturday morning he was back to his happy self. Playing, laughing and trying to jump everywhere.

Thanks to everyone for your thoughts, prayers, good vibes. Mike and I both appreciate everything and are so lucky to have so much support through all of this!

6 comments:

Heather BT said...

So glad to hear things went well.
There's a product called occuglide that many parents swear is the best thing for eye irratation.
Blessings!

Anonymous said...

Yay! I'm so happy to your little guy is doing well! Give him hugs and kisses for me. Give me a call or something so we can get together!

onemuse said...

Such great news, yay! Glad this is over with--Kale sounds like he was a true champ through the whole thing. (Isn't it amazing, how babies are so resilient?!)

Blair said...

Thank you for the update! I thought about you guys all weekend.

Linda said...

I am so happy to hear that things went well. :) He is a tough little man. Give Kale a big hug for me. I will keep you and your family in my prayers.

Linda

PS. Yup, adhesives are really hard to remove. I have no advice but to use a warm cloth over the tape to help "melt" it a little bit and slowly and gently peel it off by holding the skin taught.

Monika @ Lovely Bookshelf said...

I wonder if a warm, damp cloth with olive oil or baby oil on it would help get the adhesive off? Not sure if you can have that near his eyes right now, though.

Kale really is one tough cookie! I'm so glad you guys feel good about his surgeon, YAY!!! (((hugs))) continuing to pray for him and you guys, and all the future stuff that will come up