jasper saw the surgeon yesterday who removed the stitches from his eye last week. it was all great news again as everything looks like it's progressing very nicely. The next step will be for him to be fitted for a contact lens. this appointment is set, coincidentally, on his 2 year birthday, april 11th. the doctor office prepared us that this will not be a pleasant appointment as they will need to take measurements of his eye. i'm often asked if he could simply wear glasses to correct the vision. since he lost his lens in the accident, the power of the glasses would not be sufficient to compensate for the complete loss of the one. dr song said if the contacts are fitted in each day, and we are disciplined abotut patching his good eye to rehab the bun one, he could regain much of his sight back. at this age, they can gain the sight back as fast as they lost it.
at the risk of sounding like an overly proud parent, jasper was complete angel during yesterday's appointment. he sat in my lap and allowed both doctors to shine lights and to follow frogs around the office with his eyes. i had jasper in my arms the entire time so no pics. mara said she was too pregnant to take any pictures.
i caught this shot of jasper looking at himself in the mirror the other day.
these pics were taken this morning around 6am. the last pic is right before he was wheeled in. the surgery only lasted 30 minutes and we were walking out the door hours later. overall, the news is all super good. today, the stitches were removed (which the doctor said were done extremely well in PR) and an examination was performed. dr song said there is a slight retina tear off to the side which we will monitor. its not super concerning, but something to watch.
the best news is that the scar has indeed shifted off the center of the field of vision. hence, it's very unlikely we will need a transplant until he's much older, say 20 or 30 yrs old, where the transplant success rate is much higher. Dr song also went on to explain the three layers of the cornea. i was a bit overwhelmed by the good news, so i didn't catch everything, but the summary is that his scar is quite deep and the trauma was very severe. considering this, jasper is doing extremely well.
we have a follow up appointment in a week. he's back on eye drops four times a day. in 2-3 weeks, we will meet with a contact lens technician will outfit him with a contact lens. then we will being the patching until the age of 8.
mara + i's biggest concern was how lazy his eye has become. dr song said that young kids can lose coordination very quickly and vice versa, they can recover coordination quickly once it's fixed. so keep the prayers coming! thank you all again.
we are to report to children's hospital tomorrow at 6am for surgery scheduled around 7:30am. the procedure will remove the stitches from his eye to allow his cornea to heal even more.
he woke up today with a cough and running nose. he's not really sick, the kid is in the best mood and spirits, but it might prevent them from performing the surgery tomorrow. we report as usual and the staff will make the determination.
if all goes as planned, he will be home in the afternoon like last time.
ill be sure to post a report from the hospital tomorrow, hopefully now from my phone, as soon as i can. thank you all once more for the prayers and thoughts!
everything looks great! the doc even commented how great mara looks.
you should be able to see her face in this shot. her nose is the brightest spot in lower middle right hand corner. so...anybody have name ideas?
jasper had a great time playing with pop's laptop.
here is jasper taking a "nap" after having too much fun with the remote car Pops brought him.
i asked jasper if he wanted to wear the patch again. he took it from me and put on this show...his sense of humor is definitely in tact!
yes, i know. it was bad. nearly half a month without a post. it got so bad, mara actually posted. plenty of excuses why, one of which is that jasper got pretty sick the other week. he was in the doc's office 3 times within 4 days. at one point he got up to a 104 fever. we were quite close to admitting him to the ER. the kid hasnt gotten a break this year! the good news is he's much better, back to 100% now. needless to say he's tired of people in long white coats poking needles into him. (i snapped these shots with my new phone)
here is jasper taking a "nap" after having too much fun with the remote car Pops brought him.
