Eye Surgery

Reese had her surgery this morning to remove some scar tissue from the drainage tube in her eye. This was her first procedure since she came home not at Arkansas Children's. It was in a small surgery center where her opthalmologist operates. For the first time ever, Reese had to go to sleep without Mom or Dad there, as the anasthesiologist wouldn't let my Dad go back with her like we do at Children's (Reese was not particularly happy about that.)

And here's the best part:

They told us, and Reese, that it wouldn't hurt. That her eye would not be bothering her when she came out.

In surgery, they gave her tylenol, fentanyl, and injected lidocaine straight into her eye. Really she shouldn't have been able to feel anything. But she came out from under crying and wailing that her eye hurt. "My eye hurts!" "You said it wouldn't hurt!"

It broke my heart. We'd been told it wouldn't hurt. She'd been told it wouldn't hurt. And apparently, it did. My best guess is her pain meds given during surgery didn't kick in good until about an hour after she came out. Because she was wound up. Crying, kicking, rolling on the bed. Crying that she wanted the patch off. The doctor thought maybe her eye patch was pushing against her eye and causing discomfort. But eventually, she settled down and fell asleep. We let her sleep for a bit, then woke her up and got her out of there.

Watching her crying was heartbreaking though. I couldn't help but think of the fact she had 2 surgeries for her glaucoma in China, without us. I don't know who was taking care of her, who was comforting her. I don't know if they gave her enough pain medicine to make it not her. She seems like she's really sensitive to pain.

She kept requesting Purple Cow between crying about her eye, so we took her there afterwards. Purple vanilla milkshakes and fried pickles made the world a much better place. We then went to Target and got her 2 Barbie movies. At this point, she still wasn't opening her left eye because opening her left made her right eye (the one operated on) hurt. So she was blind as a bat. Fortunately, fried pickles are pretty easy to eat without looking. We picked up her prescription for pain medicine and headed home, where we all took naps. Eventually, she got to a point where she could open her left eye, which makes watching Barbie movies much easier.

Right now, she's wandering around with a patch over her eye which she has decorated. It has her name, and she had Dad sign it. She then wrote Mom's name on it. It's like a cast.

She visits her doctor again tomorrow morning, where they will check her eye and we'll find out exactly what restrictions she has and for how long. Her eye patch will also most likely come off tomorrow, and she won't have to wear it any more.

Moral of the story is...I don't think we'll ever let anyone tell Reese it won't hurt after the surgery again.