I guess I should put something in here about how Malcolm is doing. He had Eye Muscle Surgery last Thursday. He has been seeing his surgeon every 4-6 months for about 3 years. We have been constantly working at correcting his Lazy eye, but with only minimal results. He did eye patching, and we have adjusted his vision with bifocals, but he still crosses to some degree. The next step was the Surgery. I was very worried about it, but it was really not that bad. I didn't want to worry him too soon, so I really didn't tell him much about it until he had to go in for the pre-op blood check the day before. He was pretty freaked out by that, but got through it just fine. The nurse then walked us both through everything that would happen, although we didn't go into the cutting of the eye muscle--just the part he would need to cooperate with, which was the anesthesia. He was scared, but ok. He got excited when I explained that it should help him with his double vision. He doesn't mind being farsighted, but the double vision is annoying.
He did very well on Surgery day, although he was scared. He didn't like the anesthesia mask at all, but finally did what he needed to do. The surgery took about two hours, and went as well as hoped. He didn't want to open his eyes after, but he could. He wandered around at home pretending to be a blind person the rest of the day.
Next day I told him I wanted him to wait till the afternoon to play video games, so he tried to keep his eyes closed till then. He only opened them and kept them open once I told him he couldn't play unless I could see that his eyes were doing ok. They hurt a little only when he was opening or closing them, and Tylenol seemed to be helpful. We also had to do eye drops 2-3 times a day to keep inflamation down and infection away. We really struggled with eye drops!
As you can see in the picture, his eyes are red, and not from flash. That is just a pooling of blood from the surgery, much like a bruise. This picture was taken today, a week after his surgery. The redness has already cleared up quite a bit, and should go away completely soon. We met with his Dr. today and she said he is healing great. He doesn't need eye drops anymore, thank God, and he can actually go swimming next week at Scout camp. She did notice some improvement already in his ability to keep both eyes from crossing, but she is holding off changing his prescription till we see her again in two months. We are hoping to wean him off of bifocals. Blake and I have also noticed a difference, and we hope it is permanent. I don't want him to ever have to go through surgery again!
