Surgery details

The surgery that Anya underwent on Thursday took four and a half hours.  First they took care of her right eye, which is the eye that had a larger detachment.  It also happens to be the eye that has the larger tumor.  The doctor put a scleral buckle on her eye, which he likens to being a buckle or rubber band to go around her eye.  There are a variety of treatments for detached retinas, but most involve opening the eye.  That is not an option with Anya because of the tumors in her eyes, so  the scleral buckle was the only treatment.  He had to put the buckle on under her eye and near her nose.  This is tricky because there are muscles there.  In the end, he had to lift up some muscles and then suture them back in place after the buckle was set.  What that all means for Anya is that her recovery will be longer.

Once she gets the patches off (we still aren't sure when that will be) she will have a hard time moving her eye and tracking.  We were told that we will have to help her learn to move her body to see things, not simply move her eyes.  This will go away eventually, but will likely take months.  Her left eye received a smaller scleral buckle called a sponge.  The recovery time on her left eye should be shorter.  Things we should notice once the patches are removed are her eyes not aligning, droopy eyelids, and discomfort due to the muscles being tender.

That just covers how her eyes will feel.  How she will see is a different story.  We won't know if the surgeries were successful in terms of saving vision for another month or so.  We already know now that she can see a bit with her left eye.  She has been opening that more today and is doing a few things on her own.  Her pain has not been too great today, although we think that her eye is twitching.  It is a sensation that is a bit frightening - she doesn't know how to describe it, but we are guessing it is twitching because we were warned that may happen.

As for the tumors in her eyes, the consolidation treatments are put on hold.  We need to wait for her eyes to recover from this surgery before putting more stress on them.  She will still have exams under anesthesia monthly to monitor the tumors.  She will also have office visits weekly to monitor her retinas.