Eye Muscle Surgery Post Op

On Friday, April 29th, we took Scout for her eye muscle surgery post op (9 days) visit. Dr. Schmitt was impressed with the healing of Scout's eyes and told us we only had to continue her antibiotic/steroid eye drops through this past weekend. That was 3 days earlier than planned. I was happy to hear that because putting eye drops in a toddlers eyes three times a day was a nightmare!! I was a bit concerned that Scout would freak out at this appointment after us messing with her eyes from eye drops, but she did so well and was such a big girl. She always makes me so proud! Dr. Schmitt did her normal eye exam and said that the position of her eyes look great, although the right eye is still slightly off. It truly isn't that noticeable to me. So, with that said, for now, she will continue wearing her glasses. Like I've said in previous posts, it can take up to two months for her eyes to completely heal. Once they are completely healed, we'll know more. I'm just hoping the surgery doesn't cause her eyes to over correct. Regardless, if they are under or over corrected, the glasses will fix the issue, as long as she wears them. The good thing is, Scout has become attached to her glasses and seems to like them. We go for our next follow up in a few weeks. I will post another update at that time.

As for everything else, life is good. We are busy with our every day lives, working and playing with a little girl in between. Scout's favorite thing to do these days, and has been for a while, is doing her flash cards. We do them at least 6+ times a day. She can get about 85% of them right between to two packs. She really impresses me! She's also been learning to count. So far, we are to three. It's not just a memorization thing either, she knows how many three is. I've been buried in my lap top lately planning her 2nd birthday party. Invitations were mailed out today, so be on the lookout! :) I can't believe my baby will be 2 in less than a month. I know I will say this every year, but it seems like she was just born yesterday. I wish I could put a stop on time, but it's so rewarding watching your child grow and learn. It's such an amazing thing.

I hope everyone is having a good week! Happy Mother's Day to all of you mommy's out there!

This isn't the best picture, but I don't have many new ones to choose from. Notice how much better Scout's eyes look. I'm so thankful for God's healing power!

Eye Muscle Surgery Update

Hello family and friends. I'm sorry it's taken me a couple of days to send out an update from Scout's surgery, as most of you know, she did quite well. I'd like to thank each and every one of you for your thoughts and prayers. Most of all, I'd like to thank the good Lord above for watching over my baby girl and all the staff involved. If you are reading this and aren't sure what I'm talking about, please read my previous blog post.

We arrived at East Tennessee Children's Hospital about 7:40am Wednesday (04/20/11) morning. We first had to do outpatient registration, while waiting to be called back, we played. They have some neat things for the children to play with while playing the waiting game. Next, we went to the outpatient surgery floor where we waited in a room filled with awesome toys. About that time, Grumpy and Gran arrived. Scout was pulled around in a wagon by Gran. She loved every minute of it. Shortly after that, the nurse called us back to get Scout changed into her cute gown and get her vitals. Overall, Scout did well. She wasn't too fond of getting her blood pressure taken, but she dealt with it. We had an audience (the grandparents) outside the door entertaining Scout while the nurse did her thing. The nurse was so sweet to Scout, calling her princess and blew bubbles with her gum to make Scout smile, laugh, and keep her mind off of what was really going on. After that was a done deal, we were finally placed into a room. After waiting about 30 or so minutes, more nurses came in to introduce themselves, do more vitals, etc. Shortly after that, Scout was given her "happy juice", a.k.a. a pediatric liquid valium. They give children this to help chill them out and relax before going back to anesthesia. It didn't take but a few minutes to take affect in Scout. She was slurring words, smiling crooked, talking goofy, and feeling mighty fine. It was a moment of much humor and helped enlighten everyone. :) After about 15 minutes, she started feeling pretty sleepy. She wanted her mama to hold her, so I did just that. I held her so tight and just prayed to God to watch over her and protect her. I guess that was my first breaking point. I had been so strong up until then. It wasn't much longer after that, the nurse came to get us to take us to another room where a nurse anesthetist spoke to us about the anesthesia and to make certain we didn't have any questions. Dr. Schmitt spoke with us again about the procedure, and a nurse went over medical history, etc for what felt like the 100th time. They explained that they would give Scout gas before they put in the IV, so she shouldn't feel anything. That was relieving to know! After all of that, they wheeled Scout out and we followed until they opened the doors into surgery. Wow, that was soooooo hard. There she goes, no longer in my arms. I can't protect her, comfort her, and love on her. At that point, I had no control. :( My heart broke again. Yes, I cried, I hurt, I couldn't wait to see my baby again. Adam and I went into the surgery waiting room with the grandparents and played the waiting game. After being in there about 10 minutes, I got a call from the nurse letting me know that Scout was officially "asleep" and that she did well. That was relieving, but it wasn't over yet. About 30 to 40 more minutes went by and the receptionist asked us to have a seat in a consultation room where Dr. Schmitt would speak with us about Scout's surgery and how it went. Ahhhh, it was over!!! What a relief! Dr. Schmitt informs us that everything from the anesthesia to the surgery went as perfectly as it could have possibly gone. :) She told us that we won't know how well her eyes took to the surgery until 2 months post op. We go back in a week for her first follow up, then in a month, then for a 2 month follow up. She can start wearing her glasses again tomorrow, but Dr. Schmitt might be able to tell us next week if they are needed at this point. It will take Scout's eyes about 2 weeks to heal, until then, we have to put in antibiotic/steroid drops 3 times daily (it's a challenge), and avoid water and dirt in the eyes. She's also not allowed to rub her eyes (easier said than done) as she can pull out the stitches. Her stitches are dissolvable, and can't really be seen at this point. Maybe once the swelling gets better, we'll be able to notice them. Her eyes are blood tinged in the inner corners where the surgery was performed. It looks like she has a really, really bad case of pink eye. Okay, back to the story. After we spoke with Dr. Schmitt, we all headed back down to the room and waited for Scout's arrival. I guess it was about 30 to 45 minutes before she was brought to us, although it felt like an eternity. The nurse finally wheels her in and she was laying on her belly, balled up, taking deep breaths from crying so hard. Again, my heart broke. :( I picked her up, held her and tried to make her feel better. We kept the lights down low and stayed quite. They said that the blood curdling screams can be a side effect from the anesthesia. She was pretty calm shortly after that and slept on my chest off and on the rest of the day. It was going on 3 o'clock before we really tried to awaken her. That was a challenge, but we made it and finally left for home around 5 o'clock. Once we got home, she perked up quite a bit and has been improving daily since then. Please continue to pray for my angels recovery, as this isn't over yet. Again, thanks to all of you that have prayed for her, thought of her, and checked on her. I can't thank you enough!!

We obviously didn't take our camera for this "adventure", but we always have our phones to take pictures. Check out the pictures below of Scout's surgery day. They aren't the best quality, but it's better than nothing. :)

We've arrived at Children's. Papa and Scout are playing while we wait to be called back for registration.

Scout and Papa in front of the waterfall. There's water flowing between two pieces of glass. Scout thought it was pretty cool.


Now Scout and I pose as Papa takes our picture from the other side of the waterfall.

We are now registered and waiting for the nurse
to call us back for our first set of vital. While we wait, Gran pushes Scout around. Poor baby had no idea what she was about to endure. :(


This nurse was so good to Scout. She blew bubbles with her gum to make Scout smile and called her princess. She even gave her a sweet kiss on her cheek when we got discharged. In this picture, she's helping me get Scout dressed in her gown before getting her vitals.

We are finally in a room and Scout had just been given her "happy juice". It's basically a valium for kids. As you can tell, she was feeling pretty good. Her speech was slurred and she was just plain goofy. :)

After being doped up with "happy juice" for about 15 or so minutes. She started getting a little sleepy and wanted Mama to hold her. This is when my heart broke. :(

As you can probably tell, this is post surgery. She had been sleeping off and on most of the day. Her friend Sam sent her a goody basket which includes the bubbles you see in this picture. They helped entertain her and keep her happy, although it never last long. She felt terrible and was hurting. :(

Here is another post surgery picture. This was about 5 or so hours after surgery. Her eyes were swollen and so was most of her face.

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God Has This...

First of all, I'd like to give a quick update on my dad. He is truly a miracle of God's work and power. He's a little over 5 weeks post stroke and is driving and working daily! Can you believe that?!?!? :-D There's still more healing to take place and I'm confident that he will back 100% very soon! I'm so proud of him and his hard work towards his recovery. Dear Lord, I can't possibly thank You enough! Thank you for healing my daddy!

Now onto my baby girl...

As most of you know, Scout started wearing glasses around 4 months ago. She doesn't wear them to correct her vision, but for accommodative esotrophia (strabismus). Basically, it's crossing of the eye(s). Her crossing is mostly in her right eye, but the left eye has a tendency to do the same thing, just not as much. The glasses were prescribed in hopes of strengthening her eye muscles and correcting the crossing. They have definitely helped, just not as much as Dr. Schmitt would like. Scout started wearing her glasses towards the middle of December. She did decent with them, but not as well as we were hoping. We went for her 2 month follow up in February. Dr. Schmitt measured her eyes and was able to see that the glasses had made a slight difference, just not as much as she had hoped. Since Scout had not be wearing her glasses constantly, Dr. Schmitt wanted to give them another month to see how much they improved. Adam and I had to buckle down and play "bad" Mama and Papa, but we were successful with getting Scout to wear her glasses all day, every day! So, in March, we went for another follow up. Dr. Schmitt was pleased with how much straighter Scout's eyes were, but still not enough. :( With that said, she is scheduled to have eye muscle surgery on Wednesday, April 20th. We've known about this for nearly a month, but didn't want to say much until it was definite. Dr. Schmitt wanted to wait another month to get new measurements. If the measurements had changed, then we would post-pone surgery until she got 2 consistent measurements a month apart. We went for her pre-op visit today and of course, her measurements were consistent with the measurements from the month prior.

I'm definitely scared, sad, and heart broken that my baby has to go through this, but at the same time, I know God will take good care of her. Dr. Schmitt told us that surgery was a possibly since our first visit. So, we've had plenty of time to mentally prepare ourselves. My biggest concern is having Scout under anesthesia. I know that Children's has the best pediatric anesthesiologist, but it's still scary because of all the risk factors.

For those that are wondering how the surgery is done, let me explain. Basically, Dr. Schmitt will make an incision on the inside corners of the eye (the white part). She is able to adjust the eye muscles through that incision. She will then stitch with dissolvable stitches. She tries to adjust them perfectly, but that's not always the result you get. Every patient is different. Initially, when she mentioned the possibility of surgery, she only wanted to correct what the glasses weren't correcting. Now she's decided to do a full correction to both eyes. She may still need to wear the glasses, it will just all depend on how well her eyes do post-op. If she doesn't have to, I will be a little sad. I'm so used to seeing her cute, little face with those glasses on. She looks so stinkin' cute in them. I won't, however, miss all the odd things strangers say and ask. Don't get me wrong, she gets lots of sweet compliments from people, they make up for the ones that are nosy and rude. The surgery should only take 40 minutes for both eyes and we should have a sweet angel back in our arms within an hour. This is going to be hard, but God has this! Adam and I would appreciate lots of prayers for our sweet girl. I will try to do a quick blog update the day of her surgery, if time permits. We will have to watch her closely because she will come home with nothing over her eyes. Dr. Schmitt said her eyes will be very irritated, and look like she has pink eye. We have to avoid water in the eyes for 2 weeks (glad it's not summer yet!) and of course no playing in dirt, mulch, etc. I don't think that will be a problem with my OCD child! :) She comes by it honest! ;)

God took care of my father, I know He will take care of my baby! God has this...

Of course, I can't do a post without pictures, so check out some of the shots from Scout's 21 month photo shoot by Days Go By Photography. We've done a photo shoot every 3 months since Scout was born, so I thought I'd keep that up until she's 2. We'll do it every 6 months after that. :) Enjoy!

We love our girl!

Our child has the wittiest personality. She brings us much joy!

She was on a mission!

Scout really enjoyed smelling and picking the flowers, but she paid for it dearly the next day. Yet, another allergy flare up! Poor girl! We are now indefinitely on Singulair in the morning and Zyrtec at night. :)

Scout wasn't exactly excited about posing here because she wanted to "walk", as she says, but she dealt with it.

My girl!!

She's so stinkin' cute!!

The older she gets, the harder it is to get her to sit still for pictures. She wanted to be on the move and refused to sit on the steps with us. Normally, she would have gotten her bottom busted, but I didn't want to ruin the rest of the shoot. Terrible Twos, here we come!! ;)

She has such a concerned look on her face.

She thought she was big deal sitting on this bench. I love her eyes! They are gorgeous!

Look how precious!! We love her so much!

This is so Scout! Rotten to the core!

Pigtails!! She calls them her "piggies".

Love this picture! My gorgeous, little model!

Cutie Patootie!

She's always on the go...

I love that mischievous smile on her face!

We went to Rita's in Market Square to enjoy some Italian ice. Scout seemed to enjoy it, although, she isn't typically a fan of cold stuff, like ice cream.