EUA

At 7am today we arrived at the hospital in Michigan to check Hayden in for his eye exam under anesthesia.  I am not sure why we have to be there at 7am when the exam wasn't scheduled until 8:30am...oh well.  This was the 14th time Hayden has been under anesthesia which I am not crazy about, but it is necessary for Dr. Trese to get a good look into Hayden's eyes to determine what the best course of action is.  Not long after Hayden was taken back to the OR, Dr. Trese came out to tell us what he found. 

In his right eye, the macular fold is back and 75% of his retina is attached!  This means that he should have some vision where there is no retinal fold.  He lost his lenses in a previous eye surgery 2 years ago, so what he can see is blurry.  However, he cautioned that Hayden's eyes are going through a growth spurt until the age of 4.  This could cause traction on the already thin retina.  Clearly, the right eye is not out of the woods and may still lose vision--a thought that breaks my heart.  Instead, I am choosing to focus on the left eye, where there may still be a little hope.  Unfortunately, scar tissue has grown back in the left eye and the retina that had started to reattach is no longer attached.  Since Hayden does not have good vision in the right eye, Dr. Trese wants to do another eye surgery on the left eye in the next 6 weeks with a procedure that uses an enzyme from my blood that gets injected into Hayden's eye to make surgery easier on both Hayden and Dr. Trese. 

Once Hayden woke up and we were allowed to take him back to the hotel, we stopped at Dr. Trese's office so his staff could draw my blood which they will freeze until we come back.  It takes 3 days to extract the enzyme from my blood.  After 3 pokes, they were able to draw the 6 vials of blood that were needed and a surgery date of December 14th was scheduled. The first 2 pokes were done by "the new girl."  I felt bad for her that she didn't get it.  If Hayden and Tony weren't in the car waiting for me, I would have let her try again. 

How amazing will it feel if an enzyme from MY blood really can help my precious son?!  I hate the thought of another surgery, especially when Hayden's been doing so well these last few months.  But...what if this works and he can actually see something with his left eye.  Do I dare to hope???