To operate or not to operate...

Friday April 18th

8:00 a.m.

Check in to Primary Children's.

8:45 a.m.

Indie gets an exam by a nurse to see if she is well enough for surgery.

She gets to wear the cutest little pajama/surgery outfit.

9:15 a.m.

We meet with the doctor.

I am in tears.

He tells me to rest assured because he has performed 4 or 5 thousand of these surgeries.

He also says her anesthesiologist is who he chose for his own sons surgery.

He puts a little dot over her right eye to ensure he operates on the correct eye.

9:45 a.m.

Tearful goodbye from mom and dad.

The doctor carries her back to surgery through one door while we go out another.

9:50 a.m.

We go down to the cafe for some breakfast.

10:30 a.m.

The parents of Indie Marie Smith are paged overhead to call the operator.

I am in a panic.

We are told to go to the waiting room.

10:35 a.m.

The doctor meets us in the waiting room.

The first thing he says is everything is okay.

He tells us that after sedating her he was able to take some pictures of her eyes and in her right eye, he found that her fovea centralis didn't develop.  The fovea centralis is a spot on the eye that is vital to detailed vision.  She has vision in that eye, it just isn't sharp, so she can see things as shapes and objects but they are blurry.  He tells us that he would like to hold off on the surgery because it won't benefit her vision now, and eventually we could do surgery if her eye needs to be straightened for aesthetic purposes.

He apologizes for the fact that she had to be sedated but there was no way he could have diagnosed this otherwise.

He also apologized for making her wear the patch when it wasn't doing anything (poor little lamb had blurry vision for 2 hours a day for the last 2 months).

He gives us a prescription for glasses because he would like her to wear them as a protection to her good eye.

(We think she will look adorable in something like this). 

11:30 a.m.

I get to go in to see her.

I cry again when I see her laying in a little hospital bed all wrapped up in the warm blankies.

She is just waking up and is still a little groggy.

The anesthesia makes her a little ornery.

She drinks 8 ounces of milk like it's her job (she had been fasting since midnight).

Noon

They take us to post op.

Daddy gets to come in.

12:15 p.m.

They take out her i.v.

12:30 p.m.

We finally get to go home.

It was a long day and I am definitely glad it is over.  I was emotional all day mostly because you just never know when it comes to anesthetics.  I am sad that she has poor vision in her right eye but at the same time I feel blessed that she has great vision in her left eye.  The night before surgery Tony gave her a beautiful blessing that mentioned being able to see all of the beauty that Heavenly Father has created and I know that she will be able to do just that.