Kaitlyn's Eye

Kailtyn had surgery to implant a glaucomic shunt in her left eye on Wed, August 8th at Duke Eye center. She had Dr. M a retina specialists and Dr. Freedman the glaucomic specialists working together as a team. It was the same procedure Kyleigh had in February of 2011. Kaitlyn went back into the Operating Room like a champion and came out in Recovery the same way. She was so brave and I was so very proud of her. She experience an unusual amount of pain in comparison to her sister. However they shared the similar experience of nausea and vomiting after waking from the anesthesia. Thankfully I had Kathy White from DayStar, our children's director, with us because I do NOT handle vomit at all. Kaitlyn returned for post op the next day and found she had a corneal scratch the size of an adult contact lens. OUCH! No wonder she was in such pain. We were doing tylenol round the clock and continued this along with adding a gel-like lubricating eye drop to the regiment of already 8 eye drops a day to the left eye.
Friday morning she awoke and her eye was hurting worse and she it was not looking better. In fact, it looked worse and the lashes had goopy gross mucus on them. Not a good sign. So we call the doctors and you guessed it, we head to Duke for an afternoon appointment and see the fellow as Dr. Freedman is in surgery all day. The decision is made that she is probably having irritation from the lens and surgery itself. Her eye is probably extra lubricating and trying to force out what it sees as a foreign object - the band aid contact lens being used to repair the scratch. So they said to not worry and continue what we are doing and come back Monday.
     Except, she awoke Saturday morning and after crying through the night in her sleep she literally had her eye glued shut from the goop this time and her eye was more red and irritated. I immediate send an email and call the doctor. She calls back and asks me to send a picture of the eye. Then she said to wait and take another picture later in the day and if it doesn't look better she wants to see us at the emergency room that day at Duke. I was praying hard that we would avoid this fourth visit down the highway to Durham and praying that we could avoid an ER visit. When I sent the second picture the doctor was convinced that the eye was not infected but may be reacting to one of the drops. We stopped using one of the suspicious eye drops that could be causing an allergic reaction. We were using lubricant gel drops about every 30 minutes to an hour. We increased the tylenol to 3 chewables every 4 hours to manage the pain.
       Sunday morning, the eye has less goop but still complaining of pain and still has drainage. Unfortunately or fortunately, however you see it the contact lens came out today. Bad news is it may have come out too soon. Good news is they were thinking of taking it out tomorrow and this is one less traumatic event that the doctor will have to do to her in the office. However, this does mean I will have to add in another step of using an ointment under her eyelids tonight which is not an easy task as I can't let the tip touch her eye and she has to remain very still.
       At this time, based on Friday's visit, Kaitlyn has NO vision in her left eye. We are praying with expectancy that she will have a total healing and restored vision and lowered eye pressure in this eye quickly. Tomorrow, Monday, August 13th is another post op visit. Stay tuned for more updates.