Friday, January 27

More Details

I know my last post about the surgery was very long and detailed, but I thought of some other things that might be of interest to anyone who might be undergoing a similar surgery. In one of my earlier posts I wrote that they had told us that the surgery was quick and involved very little pain, that he probably wouldn't even need Tylenol after the initial hospital dose.

Well, we found out the day before the actual surgery at our pre-op appointment that they would actually need to do a little more extensive surgery than they initially thought. The surgeon said they would need to cut and reposition four muscles instead of just two because of the kind of crossing Ryan has. Instead of a quick surgery, she said it would probably take two and a half hours. In reality it took just under two hours. Dr. Goodman said that his eyes would probably ache for a couple days, and we should give him double doses of Tylenol for the next couple days if he needed it. He was in quite a bit of pain the first day, and we certainly gave him the Tylenol as soon as he was able to get the next dose. His eyes were quite red for over a week, and he even had some bruising under one eye.

I was really impressed and proud of my little boy. He's normally quite a whiner, but he was an absolute trooper! The stitches dissolve, but they feel grainy and sandy the first several days, the doctor said. He wanted to rub his eyes, but he was pretty good about leaving them alone. We had to put in an antibiotic gel into his eyes three times a day, which he abhored! But overall, his recovery has been very quick, and he seems to have matured a bit since this whole ordeal. He's been brave at his two follow-up appointments and very cooperative for the doctor. We won't know how successful the surgery was for another month or so, but so far it looks quite good.

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