On The Road Again

Seems to be my theme song these days.

Last night my son and I drove to Atlanta for a quick trip. I picked him up from church around 9 p.m. and we drove to Atlanta for some outpatient eye surgery for him.

Kendall was born with congenital ptosis. It sounds pretty serious, but it's really not that big of a deal. Basically, when he was born, he looked half drunk because his left eye was almost completely shut when he came out. In layman's terms, his left eyelid "lifting" muscle is longer than in the right eyelid. So for 15 years, his left eyelid has drooped. A lot of people would ask me if he had "lazy eye" but that is where the eyeball actually does not function correctly. Kendall's condition was totally related to the eyelid and the muscle being too long and not the eyeball.

When Kendall was about 5 or 6, we took him to a pediatric ophthalmologist for an evaluation. This doctor did not recommend doing anything to his eye. He said he thought it would be a purely cosmetic procedure to try to raise the eyelid and also that there might be a chance that the eyelid would not close all the way if they cut into the muscle. So, we opted to leave the "droop" alone and just chalked it up as a unique characteristic for Kendall.

Last year, Kendall asked us if we could re-evaluate his eye and possibly consider corrective surgery. So, off to the ophthalmologist again. This doctor recommended a specialist at Emory in Atlanta. In January, we went to see the doctor and he did an in-depth series of tests on Kendall's eye and his field of vision, etc... He felt that Kendall would benefit from surgery to correct the eyelid. He said it was definitely affecting his field of vision and felt that it would not just be a cosmetic procedure but saw value and improvement in going this direction.

So, this morning, Kendall had the procedure done. We are back home and he is resting. He did really well and because he was older the doctor recommended that Kendall be put in "twilight" anesthesia instead of "all the way out". This way they could sit him up during the procedure and communicate with him and get the eyelid almost perfect. There is always a possibility that the eyelid won't shut all the way after this surgery, because the muscle can be lifted too high. Putting him in a communicative role during anesthesia would assure the best outcome of the lid. I was very impressed with the team of doctors, anesthesiologists and nurses. Top notch.

A big plus and blessing to me was that one of his anesthesiologists had a son that was also a Juvenile Diabetic. Her son was 18 mos. old when he was diagnosed with diabetes and is now 14. He also wears an insulin pump like Kendall. So this lady knew Kendall's exact needs and allowed him to wear his pump during the surgery. This is huge because many doctors are not familiar with insulin pumps and the technology, etc...

I am grateful that all went well and maybe Kendall will be able to see better out of this eye now. Right now, he looks like a boxer that just lost a fight, but I am sure in a few days he will be looking better.

One humorous and kind of cute side note: Kendall was telling some of his friends at church last night about his surgery today. One of his friends told him he was wondering why Kendall was getting it done. He said something to the effect that the way Kendall's eye was, was "just Kendall" and he liked him just the way he was. I thought that was sweet.