Blogging about life in Minnesota, raising our six kids with Down syndrome while battling Breast Cancer.

Be the kind of woman that when your feet hit the floor in the morning the devil says, "Oh shit! She's up!"

Thursday, August 29, 2013

Not even 12 hours

Axel and Angela both had surgery on their eyes 12 hours ago. Both had stents put in their tear ducts. The tear duct system makes a loop.


The stent is looped through the system then sewn into place inside the nose.

Axel only had his left eye done, as well as ablation of some lashes that were growing inward into his eye, causing chronic irritation. Here's what the stent looks like in his eye.


Angela had this same surgery done when she was 8 but she pulled the stent out after a couple of weeks. They're supposed stay in for 6 weeks. Today Angela had both upper and lower ducts in her left eye, and lower duct in her right eye. Because she is missing the upper duct in her right eye, that one just has a lower stent with a "foot" holding it in place, which you can't really see. (and I can't get a picture of.) The doctor tried to reconstruct a duct on that eye but she just doesn't have enough space to place one.

However, their surgery wasn't even 12 hours ago and she has already pulled the stent out. Can you see the difference between hers and Axel's?

Guess I'll be calling the doctor tomorrow morning, because this puts her cornea at risk of being scratched.

................sigh.................

2 comments:

Twilson9608 said...

Geez!Did she do it on purpose or knowingly? Vada just had her first tear duct surgery a couple of weeks ago. The doctor went in and cleaned both sides out and everything actually seems to be going well. After seeing this, I hope that it continues to always be going well because we were told that stents could be a possibility somewhere in the future if these other (first steps) things didn't help. I am sorry that all of you have to go through this. It doesn't look fun or pleasant for anyone!

abby said...

Oh.my.goodness. No more pictures of Angela's eye surgery! My eyes started watering just looking at what she did!

Hopefully it's an easy fix and she's not in too much pain (although, I know how much she loves hospital visits, so I'm sure she won't be bummed if you have to go back....maybe she can high-five more college boys. :-))