We got up to CHLA bright and early for the first surgery of the day. I have to tell you, sitting in the pre-op waiting area of a Children's Hospital is THE most humbling thing you could ever do. So many tiny miracles in one place, and it's just amazing the things that doctors can do to help these children. It's really eye opening, and it makes me appreciate our little miracle even more than ever. I know he's got a lot of things to overcome, but we are truly so blessed that he's here with us and he is fighting to overcome these obstacles every day.
The hardest part of the morning (ever harder than waking up at 3:30am) was definitely when we wheeled Ryan's bed to those double doors and gave him one last kiss before he went into the OR. It's just heart-wrenching not being able to sit with him and hold his hand through everything. He's so brave.
The procedure only took about an hour and then Dr. Reiser and Dr. Lee called us in to talk to them. We were in the same room as last time, when Dr. Lee had to tell us that something had sort of possibly gone wrong with his vitrectomy. This time, they were much more enthusiastic about the results. They said everything went really well. They removed the cataract lens in his right eye along with some extra scar tissue. She also said that while she was in there she noticed that the inside edge of his pupil had a roughness to it that was keeping it from being able to dilate properly. Apparently there was scar tissue all around that edge, too, forming a hard, stiff ridge. So she shaved that down so that his pupil could dilate more easily. That explained a lot because his eye doctors have always commented on how hard it is to get his eyes dilated! Hopefully that's just one more step in the right direction for him to be able to see.
Dr. Lee examined his eyes while he was under anesthesia, and he said things look really good. The scar tissue is minimal in the left eye, and both retinas are still attached. So, now we just wait and see (no pun intended). We followed up with Dr. Reiser today, although she wasn't actually there because she got called into jury duty. It's kinda crazy that surgeons, especially specialist in their field, don't get an excused absence, but I guess if they do it for one they'd have to do it for all. I'm just so glad she didn't get called in yesterday!! But another eye doctor checked Ryan's eye and removed the patch, and we'll follow up again with Dr. Reiser next week. Then, in a few weeks we'll meet with Dr. Uribe to get some contact lenses. I know it seems odd to have a baby in contacts, and we asked if we could just do glasses, but they prefer contacts for patients with no lens because his prescription would be so thick it would almost be like a magnifying glass on that side of the glasses, and it could actually distort some of the images he sees. So a contact is more precise for him to see with. Guess it makes sense, but it will definitely be interesting take them out and put them in each day!
As far as everything else, Ryan was such a champ. He was able to come off the breathing tube before he even left the OR. He didn't have any desats or anything, just went right back to breathing on the cannula. They still wanted to keep him overnight for monitoring because he was a preemie and he's still under 60 weeks, so I guess that is protocol. We were pretty excited when he was doing so well and they started talking like we might be able to just take him home, but the head anesthesiologist shot us down. Oh well, at least it was only one night! And they were able to get us in for the follow up at the vision center earlier than we expected, so we were home by early afternoon. Not too bad. :)
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