LIVI Dr. updates

Eye Dr & Resp Dr follow up this past week. Why is it the girl with all the troubles??

Respiratory:Wheezing still with illnesses. But I can't say I notice her wheeze outside of that (which is hard to judge because in my experience 1 year olds have colds ALL of the time). Outside of colds & our bout with the flu, no major illnesses to speak of. And overall she isn't getting much wheezier than the boys (except on 1 occasion) with colds & I am treating them all with Albuterol with colds. So she is comperable to her sibs. She is still growing & developing appropriately. So we are going to wean her steroid dose & challange her a little bit this summer. See what happens. If we see a regression or if wheezing outside of colds resumes, we will re-evaluate. Otherwise we will follow-up in the fall & discuss stopping the 'roids if she is status quo. We are treating her "as if she has asthma" but at this age (per Dr. Thomas) it is really too early to diagnose. She said "usually kids like this declare themselves by Kindergarten" so it will be probably a guessing game of asthma vs. residual preemie lungs for quite some time for the little missy.

Eyes:With patching for just 2 weeks we are already starting to see her eyes return to both crossing equally, as opposed to favoring her right eye.  (Remember, equally alternating turning in eyes is good because that is forcing both eyes to do some of the work & develop vision abilities equally.)  However, even with glasses & patching, they are still doing quite a bit of turning.  Meaning we have done to this point everything we can do to attempt to preserve her vision & we are onto the step of "talking surgery."  This is something Jeff & I have known was always a possibility. And something we talked about doing down the road if for no other reason than the cosmetics (I'm not that vain, but I'd prefer to protect my princess from the other kids. Lets face it, kids are mean!)

I have done a little research (& my pen & paper is handy to jot down questions for the next time we see the good doc).  I have looked some at the research of Vision Therapy vs. surgery.  And while some find vision therapy successful & some findings show a better long term outcome for vision, I think that is a LONG, busy journey & I have no statistics on how many of those kiddos wind up surgerizing at some point down the road.  Also, I have read that with surgery... the earlier, the greater success.  Success in preserving her binocular vision & depth perception.  So, ultimately I think we'll stick with Dr. Troias suggestions & forego the 2nd opinion at this time.

From my research, it is a very safe, simple, outpatient surgery.  They move the muscles to straighten her eyes.  And I have heard nothing other than Dr. Troia is the best of the best.  So we are going to patch for another 2 weeks (now she gets 4 hours patch-less a day as opposed to just 2 before) & then move on to a week of prism lenses.  Prism lenses just look like a bunch of lines on her glasses (not all that attractive, fair warning).  And from my understanding (I have yet to look up the research he quoted to me) it allows him to find the best accuracy for her surgery.  We are starting with prisms of 20 (which means nothing to me by the way) & may have to change one or both eyes a time or 2 before we find the perfect match.  He said surgery success (success meaning straightened eyes in only 1 surgery) is 90% after using prisms vs. 50-60% without.  They are a little spendy (so hopefully we won't go through a bunch of changes before we find the right combo) but a 90% chance of not having to have a repeat surgery is worth a few $$ in my book. 

Nothing is set.  We definately didn't talk dates yet.  It might take us some time to find the right prism match.  And this mama & daddy have a handful of questions before we go rushing in.  We will follow up with Dr. T in about 3 weeks (after 1 week of wearing prisms) & go from there.  But more than likely, in the not too distant future, our princess will be having eye surgery.  Kind of sad.  But kind of not.  I'm ready, {I think!}

More than likely she will still need glasses afterwards to correct her farsightedness.  And we may still have to patch her for a while or on & off if one eye continues to be dominant (lazy eye as opposed to strabismus).

So thats where we are for now...