Rejection?

June 2007:

Why was Emily's left eye bulging out and starting to get cloudy? My gut was telling me the cornea was starting to show signs of rejection. I couldn't help it, nothing else made sense.

I took her to be seen by her Ophthalmologist, Dr. Morgan. He patched each eye to test her vision and found while she is focusing quite well with her right eye, she is struggling a little with her left. That kind of seems expected because the surgery in her left eye was done 2 months after her right, so it should still be trying to play catch up. But since she is having problems with swelling and some cloudiness in her left cornea, we aren't sure whether the vision issue is related to that or not. He said that it might be a possibility that the left eye was starting to reject but he could not say for sure and left that up to Dr. Zaidman to determine. Originally he wasn't going prescribe glasses for her and wanted to see her back in 3 months, but he changed his plan when I told him that Dr. Zaidman wanted her to be seen early in June to get glasses. He hesitated, but then dilated her eyes and gave me her prescription. He said he was going to get in touch with Dr. Zaidman and find out what he thinks is happening with her left eye. As you can imagine, I left the office feeling very overwhelmed and sad. I got in the car and cried.

Why is this happening? Why can't this poor little girl just be done with all this drama and get on with the business of being a baby? Like learning how to crawl, walk, talk and drink from a sippy cup. Why are we sitting here worrying about donor tissue rejection, glaucoma and glasses for an 8 month old? This is not fair, non of this is fair. She should not have to go through this. Why is this happening? Did we not say enough prayers? Is god not listening? Why her, why this tiny child? No one has an answer for me.

I wanted to wait until her two doctors talked to each other before getting her glasses. It took 2 weeks for me to finally hear back from Dr. Morgan and they both agreed that she should start wearing them. So that afternoon we went and picked out a cute pair of pink glasses for her. Her frames are on backorder for 2-3 weeks so the store loaned us the ones they had as a sample until hers come in. We picked them up put them on her for the first time, she looks so cute! It's going to be a huge adjustment for her and us, but she can see much better now (i guess) and that's what is most important. She pulls them off just about every 2 seconds, but once she starts to realize that she can see better with them on, she'll learn to leave them alone. I just can't imagine how differently her world looks now. I've ordered sun clips for her so her eyes will be protected from the sun - just in time for the summer.