Chip's Eye Debacle

So Chip's left eye is a mess.

About 3 weeks ago he started complaining that he had a funny spot in his vision. At first I thought nothing too big of it, when I get migraine's I get weird things in my eye and when I get some food and sleep they feel better and the spots go away. I thought he was just tired and stressed. Well it started to get worse and I started to worry and told him to go to the eye doctor. Once he was able to get an appointment he went to Dr. Bratcher here in Silver City and the doctor said they're was something definitely wrong with his eye. He said there was fluid, and it may be stress and would eventually soak back into the eye when he calmed down a bit (we had just had midterms, and we're broke, and we go to school AND work, it was a little stressful time yes). The other option Dr. Bratcher said was that there may have been blood in his eye which is bad and that it may or may not require surgery. So Dr. Bratcher referred us to a retina specialist in Tucson and we took the first appointment we could get. We got in on Wednesday.

So we got to Tucson and we get to the specialist ( nicest office ever!), and all of their equipment was super technologically advanced. We filled out their medical history questionnaire on this tablet that is linked to their computers so everything is linked all at once to all the computers in the office. Shmancy! We get in to the doctor and they dilate Chip's eye, and take a bunch of pictures and measurements. 

We waited for a LONG time after all the pictures to speak to the actual doctor and he wanted to take more pictures of the inside of Chip's eye before deciding exactly what was going on. 

They took Chip back, I didn't get to go with him at this point, but while he was back there they injected  the vein in his hand with red dye that went through all of his bloodstream in 20 seconds ( he got to watch it in the pictures go through his body, cool right!). then I got to go back and the doctor came in and showed us all the new pictures that they took with the dye in his system. 

Here is the juicy part, what is going on!

Chip at one point or another in his life acquired a scar on his macula. This is due to one of three things, or a combination of all of them. The doctor asked if Chip had ever lived back East, he lived in Pittsburg Penn. for 2 years. According to the doctor there is a bird that lives only in the Eastern United States whose poop carries a bacteria that if you come into contact (direct or otherwise) it can scar your vision. Stupid bird poop (thanks Tonya!). The second thing it might be is that at one point in time Chip got the flu and the virus scared his vision. The third option is that he was born with the scar. There is no way of knowing which one of these is THE one, but this is how he got the scar.

The second part to all of this is that the scar now has fluid and blood accumulating under the scar and causing the macula to bubble and distort (read: completely cover) the vision in his left eye. When the doctor looked at the spot in the fancy pictures he said that usually they would just do a laser surgery to drain the liquid and then photocoagulate it. Chip's spot is WAY too big to do this. If they were to try to do surgery right off the bat, there is a chance the scar from the laser would cover his entire vision and he would never see again.

This sounded scary until he said the next part: there is a medicine that can shrink the blood vessels significantly so that they CAN do surgery! Yay!

The doctor assured us that because Chip is so young that the medicine should work really well, and that if it works really REALLY well he might not need surgery at all!

Of course I was concerned that the scar was connected to some sort of bigger scarier problem and Dr. Schindler also assured us that it was JUST in the eye and not something more serious. Phew!

So they gave Chip his shot in his eyeball, and they had to disinfect it first which is the part that hurts the worst ( they numb his eyeball for the shot). He said it felt like he had a thousand eyelashes in his eye and that it itched and burned really bad :( Awful , and he was shaking and his eyes were dilated and all the stuff they cleaned his eye with was coming out of his nose, it was lovely.

He is doing SO much better today but his eye is still REALLY red and swollen. He will go back for his 2nd shot the 2nd week in December, and his 3rd shot in January. If he needs surgery it will also be in the new year, probably around the first of February (Happy Birthday Chip!). He is a trooper and we are both feeling really optimistic about all this. We are both really grateful for modern medicine and a kind and caring Dr. who gave us a really good deal for paying for everything ( Chip doesn't have medical insurance :( ). We are also really grateful for all of our family and friends love support and prayers. Thank you all so much! We will have an update about everything in about 6 weeks! 

Poor kid. So cute! ...and sad. 

Love,

Em