3/29 Surgery Update

It's been a few days since Leo's surgery so we apologize for the delay in updating our blog. Between taking care of Leo, Sammie, and spending time with our friends it has been a busy weekend. The procedure went as planned on Thursday. A couple of things caught us off guard before the procedure. First, as we arrived at the hospital and checked in, the fire alarm went off for a fire on the surgical floor - the same place we were supposed to be in a few minutes. We were asked if we wanted to head down to the floor by stairs instead of the elevators (which were locked down :) because of the fire. Fortunately everything was resolved by the time we actually needed to be down stairs and we were able to take the elevator once the alarm starting going off. Which for us would have been a task with the stairs since we had all of Leo's supplies and equipment.

The second thing is that once we saw the nurses and anesthesiologist to get care taken care of, we finally met with the surgeon a few minutes before Leo as taken back. Our biggest question was "how much" was she going to sew his eye shut. We also had questions about the effectiveness of the weights in his eyes. After a very interesting conversation, we learned how we should have had this conversation with her long before a couple of minutes before he was scheduled to enter the operating room. We debated about removing the weights, we learned interesting facts about how the cornea specialist, pediatric ophthalmologist, and surgeon disagreed about the approach and what should be done. Keep in mind, we met with each individually so we never heard the collective thought of the group.

So, we landed on a partial closure of his eye with a 3mil stitch. This is the same amount he had in his left eye with the first eye surgery, essentially 3mm in the right eye and 6mm total in the left eye. Our little guy has been sleepy the last few days but has been tough life he has always been. We really hope this helps, I'm not sure I could put him through this again. Luckily if it works or we find alternative methods to help Leo with his eye, the surgeon said she could remove the stitches in her office without another surgical procedure.

To put things in perspective, the following pics show how much the surgery has impacted Leo's appearance. Here is a pic of Leo a couple of days before the surgery

Here is a pic of Leo right after his surgery

Here is a pic of Leo on Friday (1 day after surgery). Yes, that is blood from his stitches.

This is a pic of Leo on Saturday. His sutures are starting to heal and the swelling is starting to go down.