I am sure that several of you may have noticed that Lexi’s eyes are still crossed even after months of treatment to try to correct the problem. Well here is an update as to what has happened thus far and what is going to happen in the next couple weeks.
Before Dawn left her job with the State of New Mexico I had been taking Lexi to a specific Pediatric Ophthalmologist here in town. When she left that position we transferred to the medical insurance provided to me through the State of Nevada. This had one unfortunate side effect and that was that the Ophthalmologist we had been seeing was no longer covered under my insurance provider. Regardless I had Dawn take her to the last follow-up appointment in July to see what the doctor recommended. It was at that appointment that he recommended that we look at surgery to correct her eyes.
Knowing that this would cost a fortune if we decided to get the surgery through a doctor that wasn’t a part of our insurance network I started looking into the two Pediatric Ophthalmologists that were covered under my insurance. I was lucky and got Lexi an appointment with the new doctor that was in a reasonable amount of time. The other doctor didn’t have a free appointment for nearly two months.
This new doctor had us come in and she took a look at her eyes and consulted the information from the previous doctor and agreed that surgery would be the best course of action for Lexi. The doctor wanted to schedule the surgery for Friday, August 31st. We were told that the surgery is an out-patient procedure and she would be going home the same day unless something happened during the procedure. We already had plans to make a New Mexico trip that same weekend and I didn’t feel safe traveling such a long distance from her physician right after surgery. I explained this to the physician’s assistant and she said no problem and she would get with me in a couple weeks to reschedule the procedure.
We completed our trip over Labor Day weekend and my thoughts went back to getting Lexi’s eyes fixed. I was lucky in that the physician’s office called and wanted to get everything scheduled. We agreed on a date and they explained to me the different appointments that I needed to attend and the documents I needed to gather before the operation. Here is the schedule of events:
Monday, September 17th: I take Lexi to an appointment with her Pediatrician in order to get a release that she is healthy enough for the operation.
Wednesday, September 19th: I take Lexi to an appointment with the Pediatric Ophthalmologist for a pre-operation consultation. We are going to go over the procedure and learn when we should bring Lexi to the hospital.
Friday, September 21st: This is the actual day of the operation. I don’t know the specific time for the operation but I was told that it normally takes 30-45 minutes to complete.
From my conversations with the doctor I am told that this is a pretty standard procedure and completely resolves the problem in 70-80% of the cases. If it doesn’t completely resolve the problem then she may need to go back for a follow-up procedure at some point in the future. However we won’t know for certain until that time comes.
Regardless of how ‘standard’ the procedure sounds it still doesn’t ease my nerves about the entire thing. When Lexi was younger we had to have her undergo an operation to clear the tear ducts in both of her eyes. That procedure was considered standard as well, yet I still found myself worried to death during the whole 30 minutes she was out of my arms. I have yet to experience a more gut wrenching feeling then to watch a nurse carry my baby away behind those sterile double doors to be operated on. I felt totally helpless. Looking back on that day everything was so surreal. I mean anytime you go under for surgery, regardless of age, there is always the remote possibility that something may go wrong. Yet here I was handing my daughter over to a complete stranger to do just that. Almost like I had placed her on the craps table, threw the dice and prayed I wouldn’t crap out.