My eight-year-old daughter is having surgery on Thursday at Akron Children's Hospital and I will take all the prayers I can get for her. She has an eye condition called nystagmus which causes her eye muscles to move constantly and her "world" to be in constant motion. Oddly enough, you can't tell by looking her that she has it, but she can't focus on anything and has been legally blind to this point. There is no cure, but the surgery is supposed to help and may even get her to the point of being able to drive when she is old enough. My husband and I have a lot of confidence in the surgeon and we're trying to stay positive, but I don't think any parent can send their child into surgery without worrying. I just can't wait until Thursday afternoon when I can go into recovery to see her and breathe again. As it is with so many kids, she's being more of a trooper than I am! Anyway, thanks in advance, y'all.
Thank you so much! We're heading to Ohio now and should be back home in a couple days. I'll update y'all then, which will probably be something like: She did great and Mama and Daddy fell apart. Ha! Seriously, though, your thoughts and prayers are much appreciated.
My son has had a couple dozen surgeries that started when he was a baby, so I understand how you feel. He always bounced right back, me not so much. Take great care and keep us updated. You have my well wishes as well as my prayers.
I hope that she will go though very well and its by the right heads. It's not good to see an person to have surgery at that age but it's something that has to be done for the better. Thinking of you and the family
Well, we got through it. She has a lot of pain, bruising, and swelling and she can't open her eyes yet, but today is a little better than yesterday, so it's going to be okay. Once again, I thank you all for the prayers and good thoughts. We had several prayer trees going on yesterday and knowing that helped me get through the day.
Hi, Scooby. It's going okay - thank you for asking! She feels fine, but unfortunately we aren't getting the results the surgeon was hoping for. Her condition is incurable at this time, but this doctor is at the forefront of research for it and he has been getting very good surgery results with other kids, so we were hoping the same for her. We go back in September for more answers. In the meantime, we're just happy that she's healing and back to her old self.
It is blessing from God that the doctor is knowledgeable about her condition. Glad she is healing. By grace - I will pray she continues towards being her old self again.
Many thanks, Guttenburg! It truly was a blessing from God that we found this doctor. We happened to be away from home traveling for an extended time when I decided to take her to get her eyes checked. I thought she just needed glasses, but then she was diagnosed with this condition and referred to the specialist who, come to find out, is one of the leading researchers in the world on the subject. It was funny because when we were initially leaving for our trip, I said to my husband, "I wonder why God is sending us here," to which he replied that we'd find out sooner or later. Sure enough, sure enough.
I work in the eye care world. I'm an ophthalmic diagnostic technician. I do various visual tests and scans and pictures of the back of the eyes. I've dealt with nystagmus. Those patients can be difficult to work with (no fault of their own, of course) because when we do scans we need patients to focus on a light and they often can't do that because their eyes are constantly moving. Not easy! LOL! Anyway, I hope things get better for your daughter.
Thanks. This October it will be 2 years. As many of you know, I had been a security guard for many years. I got burned out by it. Lousy schedule. Graveyard shifts. Low pay. No benefits. Unpleasant situations and people to deal with. The medical field seemed a step up. It definitely has been.
Congratulations on your career move, DS! I don't have any experience with optical testing outside of this, but there haven't been any issues with testing (thank goodness). Actually, if she can't focus on something then she's not supposed to try. The computers watch her and evaluate the results. What has me confused at this point (and I won't get a solid answer until next month) is that the nystagmus has slowed down according to the surgeon, but her vision hasn't improved and her null point hasn't changed.