Ethan's Eye Surgery's

As Many of you know Ethan was born with some small simple eye problems. Being that I am using my blog as a journal I felt it to be appropriate to post on his eye surgery's. It was 1 year ago today that he had the Surgery. For those of you who don't know what happened I will give a quick recap. Ethan was born with a Dermoid (over growth of tissue) on his right cornea and a Dermoid on his left brow bone. I noticed this on his eye about 1 minute after he was born. It took me probably the next 6 months trying to find a doctor that would see what I saw. I finally found one that saw it and diagnosed it as a Dermoid. He was a pediatric eye specialist not a cornea specialist. Since the Dermoid was on his cornea I had to go to a cornea specialist. He referred me to a couple, one of which scared the heck out of me. He told me he wouldn't remove it because he would then have a whole in the place of the Dermoid and said that he didn't feel comfortable working with babies. So why he even agreed to see him I'll never know. I clearly never went back there again. I really wanted to get it removed and felt that is was important that is was removed as well. Thankfully the next specialist I saw said that it needed to be removed or it would case a lazy eye, vision problems, eye development issues and more. I was so glad he was willing to do the surgery ,thankfully at this point Ethan was almost 1 years old, due to the fact that he was going to have to do anesthesia they wouldn't have done it until then. Since there was 2 Dermoids, and 2 doctors, there was 2 surgery's and 2 different hospitals with 2 copays. Oh lucky me the joys of being a parent right. The cornea surgery was done on September 4, 2007 at St Joseph Hospital. The doctor was amazing he did however have to tell us the cons of the surgery, one being that he may not be able to remove it all depending on how deep it was, and the other that he may not have a full circled cornea. Both were scary possibilities but the risk was better then all the other alternatives. To remove it he went in and basically sanded and shaved it off his cornea, it took about 45 mins. I was a nervous wreck. When I saw the Doctor come into the waiting area he had a smile on his face so I instantly knew that the out come was good. He said that he thinks he not only satisfied Mom but Grandma too. They took us back to were Ethan was and when he looked at me I couldn't believe it, it was totally gone, like it was never there before. His eye was a little red that was it.

The second surgery was on September 11, 2007 one week later at Primary Children's hospital. The doctor did incision on his brow bone to remove the dermoid. He said the the growth of tissue was a bout an inch long which is big on a little kid. That surgery took about 20 minutes but man when he was done he looked like he had been in a toddler boxing match and lost miserably. He had stitches, and big black, swollen eye.

Both Surgery's successful!!! No holes in his cornea, no lazy eyes and they said his vision is perfect. Below are some before and After pictures. I can't believe what a difference it made.

Here's Ethan before the Surgery in his cute little gown playing in the hospital bed happy as ever little did he know he was just about to be tortured.

Before: if you enlarge the picture you can see it better, its the white spot on his right eye and the puffy spot on the side of his left brow bone

This is after the second surgery. His poor little eye was black & blue for about a month. I wouldn't take him anywhere and if I did I would get the worst looks from people. My poor little boy had stitched, and a black eye NO I didn't beat him!!

Is that not the saddest thing ever

After:

Can you believe it its like it was never there.

I am so glad that we took the chance and did the surgery's his eyes look so good and we haven't had any problems. When I look at him now and look back at pictures I cant believe I had to do that much convincing to get someone to remove them, they were so obvious!! Moms do know best. Oh well its over with and he is more Handsome than ever.

If anyone every need a pediatric eye or cornea specialist please let me know, Both the Doctors did a fabulous job!!