Pre-Surgery:
about 20 min post surgery:
In the car on the ride home, about 45 min post surgery:
Sleeping in the car on the ride home:
Home about 2-3 hours post surgery:
Sleeping about 3.5 hours post-surgery:
These are pictures from Danny's Frontalis Sling Surgery on Wed., October 29th. My mother-in-law, Elaine, drove us down and stayed with us. She also took most of the pictures for me. We checked into Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City at 6:30 AM. They took him back for his surgery about an hour later around 7:30 AM.
For the surgery they did 2 pin prick incisions on his eyelid and three little ones above his eye. The ones above have 2 stitches. They inserted a silicone sling that will help him open his eye. Dr. Patel, his surgeon, said everything went well. He said that his eye will be open when he is sleeping because of the sling but eventually it will not be open as wide. I will have to give him eye drops before naps and sleep time. For three days I will have to put an ointment on his incisions and on his eye. And he will take amoxicillian for a week to prevent infection (if it gets infected they have to take it out and put it back later). Since the sling is artificial (silicone) it will have to be replaced with living tissue. When he gets "bigger" they will take a tendon, I think, from his thigh and put it in his eyelid. If the silicone one becomes too flexible before they can do the permanent surgery, they will have to replace the sling with another temporary one.
About an hour later they called me into recovery. Only one person is allowed in there so I don't have any pictures since I was holding him the whole time. He was pretty cranky in there. I was only in there for about 15-20 min before they wheeled us into post-op, which is just another recovery room. I nursed him in there and he ate well. He was still cranky though because they kept messing with him and checking him out. But after they got the IV out and we were changing into his pjs he became more awake and alert, although you could tell he was drugged. We were on our way home by 10:00 AM. When we got home an hour later he was awake and happy. He stayed awake until he had tylenol with codene at noon.
So...what's next? We will see Dr. Patel again in about a month to make sure everything is going well, and also Dr. Hoffman to make sure he can see out of the newly opened eye. I'll try to keep an update on his recovery.
9 comments:
I am so glad to have found this blog. Our 4-month old has bilateral ptosis. We have met with a pediatric opthalmologist and oculoplastic surgeon. Which did you have do the surgery? How is Danny's eye now? We have been searching for other parents who have been in this situation.
Thank you so much for posting this blog. My daughter had ptosis surgery at age 5 and just now at age 9. She also has Marcus Gunn (winking) and do not know if we should do the frontalis slings or not. How is your son doing? Does it bother him to use his eyebrow muscles? How is his blinking? Can you tell his eyelids are different? I cannot find much information out there to make my decision on surgery for my daughter. Thank you. :)
@Dawn:Danny was so little when he had the surgery, he didn't know the difference. But he could blink and close his eye fine. He eyelids do look different. The last time we were at the surgeon he said the only way to get them even was to destroy the good muscle on the other eye and do the surgery on both.If it is affecting her vision, you should do it. If you are thinking of doing it for cosmetic reasons, it's not worth it.
Tiffany: Thank you so much for responding. Yes, it was for purely cosmetic reasons to have my daughter go through the frontalis sling surgery. Her eye looks very close to her other eye right now after two ptosis surgeries. She does "wink" when she eats but not all the time. So I think we will not do the surgery and your answer helped confirm my decision. Thank you so much. :)
Do you have any additional photos that shows how much of a difference the surgery made?
@Sarah: YES! So many more. Go to the more recent posts to see a current picture. He is now 4 and I think I've posted at least once a year.
Thanks for all the insight. My 9 month old is booked for his first sling operation on his left eye on 5 August 2013.
Hi Toffany,
Thanks so much for posting your boy's experience. My boy is 11 months old and he has bilateral ptosis. I was told that my boy surgery will use mersilene sling instead of silicone. Did your doctor tell you the benefit of silicone offer other synthetic sling? Thanks alot.
@Tari W I never asked about another material to use. It didn't even enter my mind at the time that there would be another option. My guess is that they have found something that works better than silicone since it's been a few years. Hopefully that's the case! Good luck with everything.
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