We saw the glaucoma specialist last week. Several good things came out of the visit. The doctor used two more methods of examining her eyes in addition to the one used at her retina check up (applanation tonometry).
He used a tiny ultrasound placed on her eye ball to measure pressure and consistently got numbers in the 30's. This was good. Then he measured the thickness of her cornea and found it to be abnormally thick (615 microns)... which is also good. Any measurement more than 600 microns is unusually thick, and less than 500 microns is considered thin.
In Abby's case her cornea's are thick because of multiple surgeries, which in turn makes the first pressure test higher than it should be. The doctor also thinks that the eye drops have caused some improvement.
Another eye drop was added to our regimen and we are scheduled to see him again in one month. He will measure the eye again and re-evaluate where to go from there. We are all very hopeful that the drops will keep her pressures low enough (20 or below). If they persist above 30 with the two drops then we might have to consider the surgery. For now the doc said she shouldn't be able to feel any discomfort from her pressures and he hopes to see improvements in 4 weeks!!
We all came away from the appointment very encouraged and hopeful, but will still be in prayer for healing of this problem.
Another fun note:
Madison has opened a playground for special needs children! It has been a project our family has been involved with this past year along with several other families. The ribbon cutting ceremony was held last Wednesday and we got to see the park for the first time.
One of the goals we all had for this park was for typical children (siblings, family, friends) to be able to play along side children with various special needs. I think it was accomplished! Our favorite part is the different kinds of swings. Abby can easily swing in at least 3 of them. She and I went down the slide together, while Josiah tried to shoot hoops in the adjusted basketball goal.
We really enjoyed getting to play while watching other kids that we have gotten to know do things that would be extremely difficult at a regular play ground! The idea was spearheaded by a young lady who lives in our city. She was born with Spina Bifida and her mobility is limited to a wheel chair. She got to swing for the first time in a specially designed "wheel chair swing".
Some times it's the simplest things in life that bring the most joy.
The Huntsville Times ran a story about the park, and news channel 19 also aired a short section about it. We missed the news report but did get a copy of the paper.
The pictures aren't very clear, but we forgot our camera on opening day and wanted to give an idea of what it looks like.
This past weekend we headed up to Oak Ridge/Knoxville for our yearly vacation with my sister Christy and her family! We all had a blast.
Pictures of our weekend coming up soon!
2 comments:
Glad to see that the Eye Dr. is more optimistic about her eyes. That is so great about the playground we have a couple accessible playgrounds here and when Elizabeth used her walker she could go through the whole park. We also have playground days with the her therapists and other children with disabilities it is a great way to meet other parents and the therapists give you ideas on how to add therapy into playing at a park. I love it when we can multi-task working on goals when playing.
I forgot to reply to your question. The MRI is to find out whether her Ataxia is genetic or due to brain damage as Ataxia is not a preemie thing.
We saw your family on the channel 19 news last week!! Where exactly is the park. We either missed that, or they didn't say.
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