Upcoming

Many months have passed since Anya has had to see any doctors, but her time has come, and the appointments will soon be piling up. On Tuesday, she will see both ophthalmologists. The retina specialist will check her left eye for any evidence of cancer growth, and the ocular surgeon will take a look at her right eye. It has been more than a year since we last saw him because, as you may remember, he broke up with us back in September of 2012.

I contacted him over a month ago to ask about Anya's eyelid. The surgery to raise it helped, but it still droops quite a bit. I mostly wanted to know what the options were, if any. I sent him these photos:

He responded with, "call me."

To him, it is quite clear that another attempt should be made to lift her eyelid. He said he believes that Anya's biggest challenge in life will not be seeing with only one eye, but the fact that her two eyes look so very different from one another. I have already seen the attention that Anya gets because of it. Right now it is still mainly curiosity, but she tires of the questions and stares, and occasionally kids can be downright rude. As parents, we try to do what is best for our kids, and we have agreed to this surgery because we hope that it will lighten Anya's path in life. Anya's doctor clearly cares for her and he feels a responsibility to do more. Thankfully, there is much more that can be done. On Tuesday, we will discuss what his plans are and then her surgery will be later in the month.

For Anya's part, she is mostly okay with it. At first, she did not like the idea of another surgery (who can blame her?), but she really does want her eye to be more open, so she has come around. She doesn't like surgery because she has to go under anesthesia which means she cannot eat for the eight hours prior to surgery. Her doctor knew this so he asked for her surgery to be the first of the day. That means 5:30 arrival time. She may not like that so much either. The point is, these things are inconveniences, what we are going in for is a long-term fix. She gets that, so she'll deal with the inconveniences. And if the past is any indication, she will soon be charming the entire OR staff come surgery day.