Grace had surgery number 4 yesterday. She did great as usual. For once the doctor did NOT find a new problem which is a huge relief! Dr. Oliver had to remove scar tissue from her retina which is a very meticulous process and so the surgery took about 3 hours. He also had to remove some eye oil that she had to more of than she should. There is a 30-40% chance that both the excessive oil and the scar tissue can come back, so we aren't out of the woods yet, but there is no talk of a surgery in the near future yet which is nice to hear. As she gets older though it is interesting to see how she reacts to the anestehsia. This time around was like she was after her first surgery when she was only a month old where she was way more out of it. Come to find out they gave her some morphine this time - apparently since she is older and weighs more they can give her this. She is still pretty mellow and fragile today so I decided to stay home today with her while Brian is at work making us some money to pay these hospital bills. I am very thankful for a great boss at work who is understanding of me needing to take time here and there so soon after my maternity leave.
So, for now Grace is doing well. We have to keep a patch on her eye for the next week and do some eye drops and will go back for a check of the eye next week. Dr. Oliver is hopeful that she will get some vision, but he isn't sure yet how good it will be. Right now we know that some light is getting through, but since she doesn't have a lens in her eye nothing is in focus. We will soon begin patching her good eye to get her brain to use her right eye even if all she can see is light. Dr. Oliver is great in knowing that it isn't realistic to patch Grace for long periods since she will likely get pretty mad when we cover her good eye and we appreciate the Doctor realizing this - it makes it easier on us as we work with her. And eventually we will try a contact again to hopefully get items into focus once her eye heals from the recent surgery.
Otherwise, not much else to report. She weighed 11 pounds and 10 ounces yesterday. She is likely still pretty small since babies typically double their birth weight by 4 months from what I've read (which means in a couple of weeks she should be around 16 pounds - probably not going to happen), but we will chat with the pediatrician about that in a few weeks when she has her 4 month check up - hard to believe she is almost 4 months old!
We thank you for your prayers for Grace and keep on praying that she doesn't have to have surgery any time soon and that when we do start patching her good eye, that she will use her bad eye and help make it stronger.
