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July 13, 2007
Courtney eye surgery
It's been a while since I posted anything about Courtney. She just had a follow up surgery on her eye, so now's as good a time as any.
Yesterday, Courtney had an eyelid lift. This is generally a cosmetic procedure, but in Courtney's case it may help her field of vision. Since her eyeball is set further back in the socket than the other eye, the eyelids don't have as much room to open. This eyelid lift could allow her to see slightly more and might help with peripheral vision issues. There might also be purely aesthetic benefits. Not only is her damaged eye sitting further back in the socket, it's also slightly lower than the right eye. This lift might help to mask either the depth or that height disparity. I'm not really sure which; only time will tell.
The surgery went well. She was wheeled in at 2:30PM, and wheeled out at 3:25PM. She was awake when they wheeled her out. She didn't sleep too well last night and this morning was pretty queasy and had a headache, but this afternoon she was feeling a lot better. Her eye is pretty swollen, so it's too early to tell what sort of benefits may be realized. I would guess that she's only opening the eyelid about 60%. Does that sound familiar? Thankfully, this surgery was under much better circumstances, and a lot less duress.
The surgery was performed by an octal plastics surgeon who specializes in eye-socket surgeries. He was recommended by the ophthalmologist we've been seeing at UVA, and we've been very happy with him. Before the surgery, he pointed out that her damaged eye might be slightly further away from the nose than the good eye. He said that he would look at the anatomy between the eye and the nose to see if there was any way to pull the eye closer to the nose. During the eyelid lift, he poked around and discovered that there was bone there instead of scar-tissue or normal tissue. I think this was considered likely, so we weren't surprised by that discovery. He explained that there was a procedure that would involve shaving away some of that bone to give him room to pull the eye closer to the nose, but obviously we need to wait until we can evaluate the results of the lid-lift before discussing that option. Regardless, this lid-lift afforded him the opportunity to see things first hand, and could help to inform future decisions.
All of this could make it sound like Courtney has significant disfigurement, which isn't true at all. If you didn't know Courtney before the accident, you probably wouldn't notice the eye disparity. It does show up in photographs which can be discouraging to her. In person though, Courtney looks just as beautiful as before the accident. She would probably disagree, but believe me, it's true.
On Wednesday she had an appointment with the orthodontist (she's had braces for almost a year now), and found out that she might be able to get the braces off soon. She'll be thrilled to eat without worrying about food getting stuck in her braces. Now that the teeth are back where they should be, we can ramp up the process of getting a permanent implant for her missing tooth. The orthodontist was able to give her a fake tooth that attaches to the wire like the other teeth and sits in the void looking very normal.
All of her scars have healed up nicely. It's amazing what a year can do to subdue the redness in a new scar. You can still see them, the most prominent being the trachiostomy on her neck, but they have faded dramatically. At some point we might opt for another surgery to make them even less noticeable, we'll see.
With the exception of this weeks detour, Courtney is mostly back to pre-accident health. She still has peripheral double vision, very minor facial nerve issues where touch induces a tingling sensation, and she doesn't smell very well [UPDATE: By this I mean her nose doesn't pick up as many scents, oops]. With the braces, implant, and a few more surgeries, it's likely that this accident will continue to alter our lives for at least another year, but from my perspective it's manageable -- and very normal. Courtney continues to astound me with her strength.
I think that's it. If you have any questions, post a comment or email me. Thanks for the prayers.
[UPDATE: Courtney's mom is here helping out with the kids and around the house. That's been a huge help.]
Posted by mark at 3:19 PM | Comments (0)