Surgery

Julia's surgery was scheduled for December 22nd.  At first, she was an emergency add-in to the surgeon's full schedule.  So for several days we did not have a time for the surgery because she was going to be "squeezed" in.  The day before surgery, we got a call that the doctor had a cancellation and they were re-doing the schedule.  She was the youngest patient, so she would be the first surgery of the day.  I trusted the surgeon as he was the best in the area (people fly in all the way from California to see him) and he does this type of surgery all the time.  Julia could not have any formula after 2 am, no liquids at all after 4 am and we had to be at the hospital at 6am.

Children's Hospital is wonderful!  Everyone was so friendly and helpful and supportive of the parents.  My mom went with me and James for the surgery.  We got there, checked in and were taken back to a room in the day surgery area.  Julia was put in a little gown and she had to have 2 different drops in her eyes three times - 5 minutes apart.  She was amazingly happy.  Here she is on the hospital "crib":

When they came to get her for surgery, I was so scared.  I won't lie and say I was strong - I wasn't.  I cried as the nurse carried her away.  They told us it would be a couple hours depending on what they found.  They were doing a EUA (exam under anesthesia), a lensectomy and vitrectomy.  They did the iv after giving her some gas so I didn't have to see that.  Thankfully, they were back to see us in about 1 1/2 hours.  The doctor reported that everything had gone really well.  They had removed the cataract and when they went to take out the "stalk" it had just fallen away.  It was still attached at the back of the eye, but the retina was good and he was very optimistic about her regaining vision in that eye.  I was so happy!  The surgeon came and told us basically the same thing as the other doctor.  Then the nurses came and told me the best news - we could go back to recovery and see Julia.  We went into recovery and she was all swaddled and cozy.  We carried her back to our room and she started to wake up.  We fed her some pedialyte and some formula.  Since she kept that down, we were able to go home!  She had an eye shield that had to stay on until her appointment the next day, but I could tell that her pupil now looked black and normal!



She actually was fine the rest of the day!  We planned to go back to Children's the next morning to have the shield taken off and have her eye looked at.  We weren't sure when she would be getting her contact but we were hopeful that it would be soon.  I was just glad to have the surgery behind us so we could move forward and start saving her sight!