Summer's Eye Update, etc.

The Good News: Summer's eye is healing well. There is no infection and there is not a cataract forming as of yet. We still have some waiting to do because it can take up to a month to develop, but we should know for sure at her next appointment, in 3 weeks.

More Good News: As of this evening, we only have to give her one kind of eye drop 4 times a day, as opposed to 3 kinds of eye drops, one being 6 times a day, one 4 times a day and one 2 times a day. Yay! Less stress and trauma for us all! Also, she doesn't need to wear that eye shield anymore, which is great. The medical tape that held it on, even the most gentle tape we could find, caused her sensitive skin to bleed from taking it on and off. We had to cover her cheek in band-aids. Hopefully now, it can heal.

The Bad News: Summer will need vision correction as soon as her surgery, to remove her stitches in 6 weeks, is over. Her injured eye will always need help focusing. The doctor seemed surprised that we did not know that. Nope, no one mentioned that the 20/20 vision that he said was quite possible after she heals would be because of glasses. As her mom my first reaction to hearing that was to think that there is no way my perfect little girl was going to walk around with glasses. But it is what it is. I'm still really upset about it, but Joe and I are still so thankful that something worse didn't happen and I have to keep reminding myself of that. Bridgett, good timing with taking your kids to the eye doctor. Believe it or not, when I remembered you were dealing with having to get glasses for your little ones, it made me feel a lot better. Our kids are just going to look smarter than all of the others ;)


I'm going to be starting to baby-sit my nephew, Xavier, tomorrow while my SIL works. He's about 4 months old. He's a good baby but I'm still not sure how dealing with a baby and two toddlers is going to go. I've watched him quite a few times before but not day after day. Wish me luck!

I'd better go... Camryn and Summer need to go to bed and I promised Joe I would be off of here at 7:45 so he could play World of Warcraft. I think I might start a Widows of WoW club, anybody wanna join??

qwertyuiop

I've been a bad blogger the past few days. I really haven't had anything new to say. My days have consisted of sleeping, eating, changing diapers, and eye drops.

Summer is doing fine it seems. She still hates the drops but she's calmed down a bit. She has a doctor appointment with her surgeon today at 3:15, keep your fingers crossed that there's no infection and by some miracle she doesn't have that cataract!

We've been hunting for a house the past few days. We've decided to go ahead and move from here and rent a house somewhere else. We would love to have stayed here until May like we had planned but frankly we're sick of dealing with certain things that come with living here. I'll get into that at a later date I'm sure. We have decided to rent for another year or so instead of buy, to give us more time to get excellent credit and save up more money. We're looking in this area and around Joe's job and my parents' house. This is a good part of town so everything seems so expensive. I can already tell that if we want to live in a decent place we are going to be broke all of the time.

I think I hear Summer playing in the silverware drawer and Camryn is done with her banana so I'd better end this. Hopefully I can write a more entertaining entry soon, although it's kind of nice not to have much to say after the last few weeks I've had!

Una actualización y picures de víspera de Todos los Santos

It's finally cooling off around here. It's been in the high 70's the past week or so, and while I enjoyed the nice days, I am ready to wear sweaters. It seems like this time last year it was a lot colder out.

Summer had her doctor appointment on Wednesday so they could make sure her eye looks okay. When they took the patch off, I was expecting it to look weird, or to be able to see the sutures they put in, but it looks like it did before her surgery. They had to do an exam that required drops in her eyes and special lights, so two nurses, and two doctors held her down while she screamed. I can't take much more of that. Whenever they have to do that I get the biggest urge to just grab her and run out of the office. I really almost have a few times, but then I remind myself that it's in her best interest. My dad pointed out yesterday that it's hard now, but at least she's young enough to forget about all of this.

The doctor instructed us that to prevent infection, we need to give her twice as many drops as they originally told us. There's three kinds of drops. One needs to be given 6 times a day (every 2 hours!), one 4 times a day, and the other twice a day. Summer is scared to death of them and struggles quite a bit each time. Can't say I blame her. We have tried everything to help her to calm down. Candy, toys, etc. Nothing helps. She struggles so much that it is impossible for only one person to do it. When Joe is at work, my mom has had to come help me. She came this morning and my aunt Susan is going to come help at noon. It is opening weekend for deer hunting and Joe has had plans to go out to our friends' land this whole weekend for awhile. Due to this drops situation he's only going overnight tonight through tomorrow evening. Keep your fingers crossed that he gets one!

My friend Nakia is about 6 months pregnant with a baby girl. I'm really excited, because Summer and Camryn don't have any little friends yet. I am the only person out of all of my friends to have kids so far. I guess it's good, that everyone is being responsible and getting their college out of the way first! Nakia came over last night and I gave her all of the baby clothes that are too small for Camryn. I'm really glad that I was able to give them to someone I know that needs them, but it was kind of hard to see them go. I think I have an emotional attachment to their baby clothes, maybe since Summer and Camryn both wore them when they were itty-bitty. Nakia is in college to get her degree in social work and psychology. She's also going to be getting her Masters in social work as well. She said that if you promise to get a job with the state, the state will pay for you to get your Masters. Hmmmm something to think about... I've strongly considered getting into social work. I've heard the money isn't great but I'm sure the job would be very rewarding.

Here's a picture I stole off of my cousin's Facebook, of us on the night after Halloween:


It's not the best quality. I still don't have the good pictures off of my mom's camera, I'll try to get them later today. Here's one of Summer, he didn't have one of Camryn on there.



Last but not least, my cousin Libby as Sarah Palin, and my uncle David as John McCain:

Good Morning America

Sorry I didn't get to update sooner. Summer's surgery went well. The doctor came and talked with us while she was in recovery and explained how it went and what exactly was wrong. He said it was a really bad injury. Jack's claw tore through her iris, and down deeper into her cornea. She also had a spot on her lens that looked like it could possibly turn into a trauma-induced cataract. He was able to stitch the tear, but he had to leave the iris/pupil misshapen for now so that he could observe the spot on her lens to see if the cataract gets bigger. If it does, we'll know in a few weeks probably and they will have to do a second surgery to remove it, and then re-form the iris around the pupil. If the cataract does not appear, we will still have the option of doing a small surgery to re-form the iris.

He said that she will not lose vision either way, unless something happened such as more trauma to the eye or it gets an infection. That was our biggest concern so we feel relieved. We have to put three different kinds of drops in her eyes three times a day. That should be interesting... she would barely let me give her Motrin this morning for her pain.

It was of course another traumatic day for us all as you can imagine. She's just so little. She doesn't understand what's going on at all. They gave her medicine to calm her before they took her yesterday and she got pretty out-of-it, but that didn't stop her from screaming and clinging to me for dear life as they took her away to surgery. She was a tired, drugged-up mess last night and this morning doesn't seem to be any different. She's in a lot of pain, I'm really hoping that goes away soon. She's been keeping her good eye closed, I suppose it's hard for her to keep the painful eye closed and the other open. She's got an appointment at the eye doctor at 3pm today, they're going to take her eye shield off and make sure everything looks okay.

I feel so drained, and exhausted, physically and emotionally. I have even more sympathy now for parents of kids going through things far worse, I don't know how they do it.

So how bout that election? I am so excited. I feel like I woke up in a new, better country today. There are so many people today that feel the same way I do, and I know there are others that are disappointed. I just really hope that democrat or republican, we can all pull together and get things moving in the right direction.

I'll let you guys watch this video I just took if you promise not to look at how stained our carpet is right now. Darn kids.




Summer is calling for me and I need to go get her before she tries to walk blindly to me. Have a good Wednesday :)

Happy Election Day

Summer had an appointment with the Ophthalmologist this morning at 8:30. We got up bright and early at 7:00, got ready, and my mom came over to go with me. We got there right on time and were seen pretty quickly. The nurse looked her over, and then the resident doctor that had seen her at the hospital came in. He did a quick exam, and then told us that it looks like the abrasion was healing. I felt relieved as he got up and told us the doctor would be in to look at her in a minute. The doctor came in and shined a light in her eyes. The he pulled the exam machine over and convinced her to put her chin on the chin rest so he could see what was going on close up. She cooperated, amazingly, after the promise of a sucker, and after he was done, he said, "Well, the injury is worse than we thought." OMG. So apparently, the resident doesn't know what he's doing and didn't notice that SHE HAS A HOLE IN HER CORNEA. At the moment, her iris is stopping up the hole and preventing the leakage of fluids and entry of infection-causing bacteria. That could change at any moment, which means she needs surgery to repair the hole right away.


She had eaten a banana probably 5 minutes before he asked me if she had eaten anything. Because she had eaten, we have to wait 6 hours. They were able to schedule her for surgery at 4pm, and we have to be there at 2:30. The doctor that we saw is who will be performing the surgery. The good thing is that he is the head of Opthomology at the hospital and has been doing this for 12 years. He knows what he's doing, so I'm confident that she will be getting the best care possible.

We couldn't really get a straight answer as far as whether her vision quality in that eye is at risk. I guess that can't be answered until after the surgery.

We left the office, and I voted on the way home (yay!). I had called Joe and explained what was going on, and he was already home when we got here. We put Summer down for a nap (although she still hasn't fallen asleep) and ate some lunch. My mom just now left with Camryn. She's going to take care of her for us until we get back home later. The surgery is outpatient, so hopefully everything goes smoothly and we won't be at the hospital too long.

When I had gotten home, I found Joe in here calling vets, asking their prices for declawing. We're going to be doing that asap, and in the meantime, Jack is stuck in the laudry room. We can't take another chance. I hate the idea of declawing, it's just like cutting off the ends of your fingers. But at this point, it's neccessary.

Thank you all for your kind words. I wish this entry could have been about her healing perfectly, but instead I'm going to have to ask that you keep Summer in your thoughts. Keep your fingers crossed, pray, meditate, whatever it is that you do to connect you to a higher power. I'll update as soon as I can.

Happy Halloween

(**Disclaimer: This entry is going to be all over the place, so read with patience.**)

Our cat, Jack, has not gotten used to Harley yet. This past Friday, Halloween, Jack sat on the kitchen table all day, hissing and growling at Harley every time she came into the kitchen. I yelled at him a few times to get down, but he kept getting back up there.

That evening, we had plans to go to my aunt's house to eat dinner and trick-or-treat. Joe and I got the girls into their costumes around 5pm. My dad came by to see them, and after he left, we thought we would get a few pictures of them sitting on the porch with the pumpkin. We took them outside, and right as the door was closing behind us, Harley ran out. She took off down the street and Joe went to get her. I took the girls back inside and we went into the kitchen. Joe returned with Harley a few minutes later and she ran into the kitchen with us. Jack, sitting on the table, started to growl. Right at that moment, as Harley was walking toward Jack, Summer walked in between them and turned to face Jack. He freaked out, lashed his claw out in front of him, and took off. Summer started screaming. She turned back around to face me and I ran to her. There was blood streaming out of her eye. I picked her up and put her onto the counter. I watched as her pupil literally leaked out into her iris. I yelled for Joe and he came running in. We both were panicked. Neither of us has ever dealt with an injury. At all. We knew she needed to go to the ER but we didn't know which one. We didn't know if she was going to go blind, or what to do. Joe called 911 and the operator said she would send someone right away because an eye injury like that was certainly an emergency.

I was in tears as I held Summer. She was crying so hard she was practically hyperventilating. We sat in the living room as we waited for the medics. Joe called my mom and told her to come to our house instead of my aunts. A couple kids came to the door to trick-or-treat. The ambulance got there a few minutes later. Lights were flashing, but no siren, thank goodness. Two guys got out and came into the house. They took her blood pressure, looked her over, and asked us which hospital we wanted to go to. We chose the children's hospital downtown. My mom had arrived by that time, and she offered to take Camryn to my aunts' house so we didn't have to take her to the hospital. We agreed, and we decided that I would ride in the ambulance with Summer, and Joe would follow us in the car. They strapped me down to the gurney, (Yes. Strapped me down. I felt like Britney Spears.) and I held onto Summer. The ride there was quick. I signed a few things, gave her insurance info, and conversated with the medic guy. He had a 22-month-old son who loves Thomas the Tank Engine. Summer slept most of the way there.

We were ushered into the ER quickly. I gave the check-in nurse our info and we waited for Joe in the waiting area. Once he got there we were taken into the triage area right away. The nurse checked her over and sent us over to be seen by a doctor, "because her eye is not responding to my light."

We got into a room and the doctor came by. He examined her eye and decided she needed to be seen by an eye doctor. He also said she would need a CAT scan to make sure her eyeball was not ruptured or something. We went to get the CAT scan while we were waiting for the on-call opthomologist. We had to talk Summer into laying on the table thing and put her head in the brace. We promised her that she would have a lot of fun looking at the Dora stickers that the nurse had in the tunnel. She did really good considering that she was wrapped up in a lead blanket and couldn't move.

We waited for awhile and finally the doctor got there. He shined a light in her eyes, and then we had to hold her down, kicking and screaming, while he put drops in her eyes. He shined a light in her eye again and the yellow dye highlighted a small area that looked like a cut. A corneal abrasion. He said that the reason her pupil was misshapen was that it had become detached and moved. I still don't quite understand that one. Apparently that does not affect vision. He said that he was only concerned at this point that her eyeball itself had been punctured. He had examined the CAT scan results, but needed to do an actual exam. He went off to prepare for that, and the nurse said we needed to put an IV in her to give her antibiotics to prevent infections. I went in the room with her and had to help hold her down. Summer fought and screamed as the nurse did the IV and taped it all up. It was heartbreaking to watch Summer so defenseless and scared. I took her back into our room and we waited some more for the doctor.

He came in and said we needed to go over to the room where she had the IV so he could look into her eye. We went over and there were two nurses there as well. One nurse said to the other, "Should I go get the Papoose?" I turned to her and said, "Is that a nice way of saying straightjacket?" She laughed and said yes.

Summer clung to me as I lay her onto the table. Joe had to help me pry her off, and the nurse wrapped her arms in a blanket. The doctor struggled to get this torture device-type eyelid opener into her eye. He got it in and Summer's eye was wide open for him to look at it. She looked terrified and screamed, "Get up get up get up!!!!!" All I could do was hold onto her leg and look away. My eyes were welling up and I looked up to the TV that was on to distract myself. A commercial was on. "One eight hundreddddddd, safe auto, pick up the phooone, the call is freee..." I sang in my head to keep from crying. After what seemed like an hour, he finished his exam and took the torture device out of her eye. Joe picked her up and the doctor said that her eyeball was not punctured. BIG relief. That would have caused her to lose vision. He said that her vision should be fine, but he would need to put a couple sutures on the cut that was on the corner of her eye. Great, more torture. We went back to our little room to wait.

After what seems like more hours passed, the doctor came back in and said that they wouldn't let him sedate her. I guess because of how small she was. We were worried that she wasn't going to be still enough for the stitches. The nurse suggested an anti-anxiety/painkiller to help her relax and we carried her back into the torture chamber. She clung to us again and out came the Papoose. The nurse wrapped her up on the table and we tried to calm her down. She got the meds in her IV and we waited a few minutes. She didn't stop screaming for a second. The doctor decided to go ahead and try to give her the numbing medicine, in the form of a shot right beside her eye. He put the needle up to it and Summer kept thrashing around. After about 10 minutes of this, he gave up. It was too dangerous since she wouldn't hold still.




We went back to our room. The nurse came in and gave us the good news that we were going to be released. The doctor came back in and said that her cut should still heal fine. He said she has a corneal abrasion that should heal in a few days, a bruise on her eyeball, and a misshapen pupil. He said that everything would be ok, but that she needs to be seen sometime early this week. We were brought our release papers and finally we left. It was 12:30am by this time and none of us had eaten dinner. We stopped by Taco Bell and got some food and went home and ate. Summer was exhausted and Joe and I were totally drained. We finally got to bed around 1:30.

Summer is doing ok now. We have to squirt this antibiotic gunk into her eye every 6 hours, and that isn't fun at all, but it's well worth it to prevent an infection. She doesn't complain too much about pain. I just now got a call from the resident that saw her at the hospital and said I need to call and make an appointment for tomorrow. (Perfect since we'll be out and about anyway, VOTING!) I'm anxious to talk to the doctor to find out more about her pupil. The doctor we saw made it sound like it was a cosmetic issue and no big deal. The shape of your pupil makes a difference in how you look so I'm really hoping they can fix it.

So, that was our Halloween. Saturday evening we got them back into their costumes and went over to my aunts to make up for them missing out. They got to go up to her door and trick-or-treat, and then we sat around eating tons of candy. We got pictures of them in their costumes, too. They're all on my mom's camera but I'll post them soon.

As traumatic as that all was, and as shook up as we are over it, we feel very thankful. It could have been so much worse. We know we are very lucky to have healthy kids. While this was a really horrible thing to watch your child go through, I'm sure there is a life lesson hidden in there somewhere, along with getting your grumpy cat declawed when you have small kids.