December is going to be a big month for the Wiede family, for both life changes and medical reasons. I'll start with the fun part, which makes more sense since it's in chronological order anyways. On Tuesday, December 15 we are scheduled to close on our first house! We are staying in Coppell and found a great house in the bird streets through word of mouth...felt like a total God thing. The family who currently lives there attends our church and was hoping to find another family who would love their house and make it a home, so we're thrilled they decided to entrust us with the house. It's also exciting because Hazel will be able to attend Mockingbird Elementary and they have a fantastic special needs program. I get this question a lot (in some form or another), but we don't know exactly what Hazel is capable of mentally...we DO know that she is visually impaired and hearing impaired -- what I'm saying is that she might be as smart as all her classmates but she will likely need different methods of learning based on her impairments. We know that at a minimum, and if you want me to be totally honest there is every chance that she will struggle in a regular classroom and will do better in a special needs program. Only time will tell, all we can do is keep working with her and taking advantage of great programs like ECI (Early child intervention) to give her the best chance to succeed.
So on Tuesday we close on the house, and in the early hours of Wednesday 12/16 we will be back at the surgery center for another eye surgery. For a few months now we have known that Hazel favors her left eye for just about everything. If she has a book or wants a better look at something she will tilt her head to use that eye and ignore her right one. Since birth her right eye has always been weaker, which is why we chose to do the cornea transplant on that eye first when she was only 3 weeks old. We've tried a few different things to balance out her vision-- putting a patch on her strong eye, more steroid drops in her weak eye...nothing has the impact she needs to improve her vision. At this point the corneal wall is slightly thicker than it should be and the cornea itself is getting cloudy. You've probably already guessed the outcome here, it's time to replace the 2 year old cornea in her right eye. This procedure probably sounds like the most serious surgery she could have, but the surgery itself is not very invasive. The best analogy here is replacing a foggy window, all the work is right in front of you...the challenging part is getting the new window is fit in place and seamlessly fit into the frame. The same is true for this cornea transplant, getting the cornea to gel with her eye is a game decided by millimeters...this is why surgeons go to school for 15 years (or whatever)!!! We trust Dr Bowman and know this surgery will go well.
So what's next?
Hazel will have sutchers in her eye to hold the cornea in place for a few weeks, but the healing process should be pretty quick. We will have to go back to put her under anesthesia in January for removal of the stitches, but after that it's just back to the waiting game. We will keep our routine appointments and check ups scheduled...there's no telling what is in store for our little angel.
I will update everyone on the surgery outcome but we could really use some pre-op prayer for the next 2 weeks. Please pray for steady surgeon hands (Dr Bowman) and also that Hazel has a smooth transition out of anesthesia -- the last few have been rough.
Until next time...
