Take It From The Top

I feel like I'm running out of ways to recap surgery days, but I think it just comes with the territory of writing enough of these things over the last 3+ years.  I suppose that this blog is as much for me as it is for you, I can barely keep up with everything that Hazel has gone through and the dozens of times we've sat and talked with our doctors about the current health of Hazel's eyes.  At the very least it's a good way to document things, like Hazel's fifth cornea transplant :)

Today was different in a couple of ways from what we're used to at the surgery center, mainly that we did not have to arrive until 6:30 a.m. -- a fact I wish I knew when I woke up about half an hour too early.  Typically Hazel is first on the surgery schedule, but with increasing demand and the short turnaround time for this surgery we were just happy to be on the list.  After about an hour in the waiting room we found ourselves in the pre-op area where Hazel now has her own routine of putting on her "bracelets" (medical bands) and using the "blue pem" (purple marker) to draw on them.  There  were very few tears this morning and Hazel was in surprisingly good spirits, I'm not sure if it's because we've gone there 4 times in under 3 months or if she just had a good morning of being brave....either way, it was kinda nice.  Dr Moore is our anesthesiologist who came from a background working in pediatrics and it's been really nice working with her for the past few months instead of getting a call from (fill in the blank) doctor from generic anesthesia group -- it just helps to build a rapport and fine tune the methods that work best for Hazel to go to sleep and wake up.  Plus, Dr Moore has toys and plays Paw Patrol on her phone -- our tiny patient approves of these methods.

The agenda today was to remove from blood and excess fluid that is present in the right eye, do some preventative work on the blood vessels to stop future blood issues and to put on her new cornea.  The procedure took about 90 minutes and Dr Bowman grabbed us from the waiting room with a spring in his step and a smile on his face.  "It couldn't have gone any better" was the exact phrase he used to start our recap discussion...the red reflex in her eye came back STRONG and that's really exciting for us since the clarity for light to reach the back of her eye is so critical.  Her eye pressures were both below 20 today (which is great, but below the norm for her), so we suspect the anesthetics and timing of taking the pressures might have skewed the numbers but we are still happy to hear the news.

Today was the part that we can't do without Hazel's team....tomorrow is the first day where persistence and practice are the name of the game for Aubree and I.  Hazel will have a few days and weeks to let her eye heal before we start doing any sort of patching or strengthening exercises but we're still just hopeful that this surgery is a longer term fix than the previous attempts and that she gets a window of opportunity to see what she can do with the right help.  We're hopeful and anxious and proud of our little girl, she was an all star today.

Until next time...