Scratched Cornea, Corneal Ulcer and Infection

October 2008:

We had encountered a new problem, and a possible set back in Emily's right eye. She started to develop what looked to me like pink eye in her right eye. I started giving her antibiotic drops, just in case, until I could talk to a doctor. Later that night we noticed a small grey spot on the same eye. The next morning the grey spot had become what looked to me like an indentation. It literally looked like a crater in the middle of her eye. Her cornea doctor was not in the office but we were told to take her as soon as possible to her Ophthalmologist. We got in to see him first thing the next morning. We discovered that she has a scratch on her cornea and sometimes that can cause the indentation that I was seeing. She was supposed to just continue with the antibiotic drops to help with the healing process, but we followed up with her cornea specialist yesterday and he changed her course of treatment. The scratch is still there and the "crater" (for lack of a better word) is actually considered a corneal ulcer. This is not good news.

There are two possibilities of how things can go for her. The first is that it can heal quickly and not have any lasting complications, which is obviously what we are hoping for. However, it could also heal and cause scarring, which will cause the cornea to become cloudy which leads to decreased vision and possible rejection of the cornea transplant. Her doctor said it's a 50/50 chance that it could go either way. If there is an infection in the ulcer, which he swabbed her eye to test for, would also be very bad. I wouldn't know the results until the next day. Unfortunately, it came back positive.

Until this was resolved, she was not getting any drops in that eye and was now on 2 types of ointment. The antibiotic/steroid ointment seemed to be bothering her because she was rubbing her eyes alot and had not willingly opened them yet. She woke up and about an hour later went back to sleep, probably because it's just easier to keep her eyes closed right now. She just seemed so miserable and it broke my heart. We don't know how she scratched her eye, and we will probably never know. But things like this happen and we just have to take it as it comes.

After 2 days of Emily being miserable, I called the doctor and he told me to take her off of the one ointment. Apparently she was having an allergic reaction to it. Great, just great. Why can't this poor little girl catch a break? Why of all things did she have to scratch her EYE???

Please God, I'm not sure I can handle much more....