Eye Surgery #2 for Sarah

After Sarah's surgery last year, we hoped her eye problems would be taken care of and we would be done with surgeries. Unfortunately, she developed glaucoma after her first surgery, and the membrane that the doctor cut away from her pupil slowly grew back over the last year. We found out last Fall that another surgery would be necessary, and we decided to do it after Christmas and before we moved.

Sarah had to fast the morning of the surgery, so we stuffed her full of all of her favorite foods the night before. Doesn't a bedtime snack of spaghetti, rice, and peas sound delicious?

 It was nice that she wasn't aware of why we were at the hospital, so we didn't have to deal with so much fear and anticipation. This was Sarah playing in the waiting room while we were checking in.

 By the time she had her temperature taken (by far the most traumatizing moment of the day. Thermometers are evil!) and got changed into her much-too-large hospital jammies, she was thoroughly scared and grumpy. Never fear: the anesthesiologist came along with some happy medicine to calm her down before they took her back. 

 Within 5 minutes, everything was hilarious. It was pretty funny to watch our intoxicated baby.

 She just got heavier and heavier until she was mostly asleep. She didn't care too much when the nurse came to take her back for surgery. It was scary handing my baby over and just walking out of the room without her. No fun at all.

 They told us that the surgery would take around an hour and a half. By the time they finally came to get us 3 hours later, we were both pretty anxious. I was very grateful to snuggle my baby up and be the first thing she saw when she woke up. She wasn't a very happy camper. The surgery went well. They were able to correct the glaucoma and remove the membrane blocking her vision again. We hope that this will be her last surgery, but we will see what the future holds. 

 She did great with her recovery. She absolutely hated the eye drops we had to give her 10 times a day, but she miraculously left the eye shield alone for the whole week she had to wear it. That was a huge blessing. 

Later, we had to go back to the hospital for another sedation so that Sarah could have an MRI to make sure that there wasn't a tumor in her eye causing the abnormal growth. Any time a doctor pulls out the big C word, it gets pretty scary. We were very relieved to learn that there was no evidence of a tumor in Sarah's eye. 

Working on Sarah's vision continues to be a challenging journey, but we are very blessed with good doctors. We patch for about 3 hours a day, which gives Mommy & Sarah lots of play time together. That will probably continue until she is 8 years old or so. In the end, we know all of it will be worth it when it allows her to see!