Waiting Game, Eye Surgeries, and Lasers

Ana-Cherie is on the left, noted by the small red arrows

Like everything in adoption, it's all a waiting game. Waiting to hold your child. Waiting for paperwork to be done. Waiting to start paperwork. Waiting for things to be finished. Waiting to find maybe one more picture of your child somewhere.

We currently have 2 fundraisers running for our adoption. This was kind of a surprise "pregnancy", as we really weren't thinking we would ever go back to China.
Current Fundraisers:

1. Puzzle Piece Fundraiser- $5 buys a puzzle piece, which we will write your name on.
2. Tupperware Fundraiser- This runs through OCTOBER 26. We get 40% of the proceeds towards our adoption of Ana-Cherie. They have some really awesome products, and because this is online, they are shipped straight to you.

I'm sorry I didn't get any pictures from Reese's birthday posted. She wasn't feeling particularly photo-friendly. We went and ate at a local Chinese place that is supposed to be authentic, more or less. It's actually run by Chinese people and I've seen Chinese people there, so that's a good sign. The sesame chicken is amazing regardless.

We've also had some recent news on Reese's glaucoma. A couple of weeks ago she had eye surgery to remove scar tissue from the drain (bleb) in her eye. The hope was that removing the scar tissue would allow the drain to drain better, therefore keeping her pressure down better. This kid has bounced from 49 to 26 and every where in between during her visits since February. (Normal is between 10-20.) The drain was put in in 2007 in China, so it's held up pretty well. She's on 3 different drops: Azopt, Xalatan, and Betoptic, to try to control her pressure. The stitch they put in her eye didn't dissolve like it was supposed to, so it aggravated her for about 2 weeks. She was off drops and on antibiotic ointment for 2 weeks, before they removed the stitch in her eye. Her pressure at that visit was 49. And no, Reese doesn't say it hurts. She claims it doesn't. Who knows really... We also found out that visit that the surgery was basically a failure. The scar tissue had built back up in that short period of time. Back onto her 3 eye drops, come back in a week.

Well, a week later was Oct 10. After a week of doing drops, her pressure was still only down to 40. Still no complaint of pain, she says it feels "normal." But this drop just isn't enough of a drop. We're now looking at doing another surgery, this time to put in a new system to lower the pressure. It's a tube and valve system, as opposed to the drain Reese has. This is the 2nd drain Reese has had (they did the surgery twice in China), so it's apparently time to try something else. This system will basically have a tube that drains the fluid, and a valve that tells it when to drain (shutting off when it gets down to around 10), as I understand. We've also added an oral medication to try to lower her pressure further, we go back in about 2 weeks to see what it has done. This is both to buy us some time until the doctor can get OR time at a local hospital (because we want access to morphine, which Reese gets after her laser treatments, but which is not available at the surgery center where she had her surgery and bad experience last time), and because with the surgery, if the pressure drops from a high number to normal quickly, like it would, it can cause swelling in the eye which can cause pain. So we want her pressure as low as we can get it before this surgery. We're hoping this medicine brings down her pressure because every moment it's as high as it is, it's deteriorating what vision she has in that eye. She can tell you how many fingers you're holding up about 6 inches from her face. It's not great, but it's vision.

She also had a laser treatment on Thursday (the 11th). We have a new doctor, as Dr Buckmiller has moved. They decided to try a new pain killer method using a nerve block. My mom decided to try it, but asked that an IV be put in while she was under in case we needed the morphine hit(s) she normally needs. The nerve block must have helped, as Reese only needed 1 hit of morphine, as opposed to 2-3, but she doesn't like it and has asked not to use it next time. We're also thinking it may have contributed to how swollen her face is. It's more swollen than usual. I have completely lost track of how many laser treatments she has had, but we're in it for the long haul. There's currently no talk of going on maintenance. Her birthmark keeps lightening, so we'll keep doing it for now. And by this time next year, we'll be doing this times two. :)

I do believe you are now pretty much caught up on everything.