Eye to Eye

Riley had a minor, elective surgery on November 30th. She was born with her tear ducts clogged in both eyes, after a few months the left eye cleared up but the right eye never did. When we mentioned this at her 12 month appointment Riley's doctor said they could refer her to an ophthalmologist. Well, then covid exploded and that never happened. We didn't really care to push it because we were about to be on free health insurance where everything is covered. So then at her 18 month appointment we did get a referral, unfortunately since we are on the military insurance we have limited providers we can see, most pediatric specialists are at Walter Reed, a seven minute drive from our house. The pediatric ophthalmologist happens to be a Fort Belvoir which is 45 minutes away. So, already not a great start to this whole process. 

It was quite the journey to actually get us to the surgery day. Lots of appointments and lots of hemming and hawing by me and Ben. There are definite downsides to being married to a doctor and one of them is knowing way too many things to be worried about. After telling Ben the procedure to unclog the tear duct would require anesthesia he mentioned that made him a little worried because of the lack of studies around giving children anesthesia. Obviously, they think it's safe, but ethically you can't pick a random amount of children, put them under anesthesia, and see how they all turn out. Eventually after thought and prayer we decided that we would trust the current medical opinion that the anesthesia wouldn't negatively affect Riley's development. We were comforted by the fact that the surgery would be just 30-45 minutes. 

We were scheduled to arrive at the hospital at 6:15 am. So that meant waking Riley up around 5:20. She actually handled that much better than her parents, after she rubbed the sleep from her eyes she was ready for the day to start. Once we got to the hospital and all checked in we had a great time. They had a little toy car and I pushed Riley around and around until they were ready for her. Before they took her away they gave her something to make her a little loopy so that she wouldn't get too stressed when they took her away from me. Below is a video to show how out of it she was. (Notice that she was drooling a little, but couldn't seem to figure out how to stop it.)

After the surgery was a whole other animal. Walking back to post op and seeing Riley with wires all over her, completely limp, and screaming like a banshee was slightly traumatic. As I tried to calm Riley down while talking with the nurse my stress level was pretty high. The nurse was obviously not used to pediatric patients and didn't really handle all the screaming very well. I could feel her nervous energy and it wasn't helping. Luckily, she asked her boss if she could let Ben come back and it was a huge help. He was able to deal with all the paperwork and chatting with the doctors while I tried to contain Riley. I need both hands and all my attention to deal with her since her body was still not fully awake. 

We spent the rest of the day trying to take it easy and watching Olaf's Frozen Adventure. I seriously underestimated how much Riley would fall in love with that Olaf show. At one point there are wolves that chase Olaf. Riley thought it was the best things ever and almost every day since she has mentioned, "Puppies chasing Olaf," while throwing her head back and laughing. That girl. 

Long story short I'm never ever planning to sign my child up for an elective surgery. If it's not threatening they can take care of it as a teenager. No clogged tear duct was worth all this. 

Just because this post was pretty boring here are a few random videos that I forgot to add to my last post: