Scratches on Both Corneas and Infection

Last Wednesday I noticed Emily's right eye seemed to be more bloodshot than it usually is. I mentioned it to Jason and he didn't really notice much of a difference...but I knew something was wrong. Two days later, on a day that Emily already had a scheduled appointment with Dr. Zaidman, she woke up and the second I tried to put drops in her eyes I immediately felt sick to my stomach. Flashback to Oct. 2008 when she had the corneal ulcer and infection in her right eye after she scratched it...It looked exactly the same. Are you kidding me???? What the hell happened????

I got the kids to school (late) and rushed off to Dr. Zaidman's office. I actually got there 45 minutes early because I didn't want to waste any time and thought if he wasn't too backed up he could take us in when he had an opening. WRONG....Do not show up early and expect to be seen even on time...I waited for over 2 hours. Emily ate every single snack I had with me and I was almost ready to go take a walk. It was about 95 degrees in there and I felt like between my nerves and the heat that I was going to pass out. I tried to keep my mind off of how bad her eye looked, but just trying to talk to Jason over the phone and explain what was going on, I started to get upset. How could this happen to her again?? And the worst part was that I saw something wrong with her left eye as well, it literally looks like someone peeled a layer of her cornea off. The right eye was much worse, looking like a crater in the center of her eye. I knew there was an infection...ugh. The part that irritates me the most is that Dr. Zaidman had kept her on the Iquix ever since her last infection like this, she was on it only once a day up until her surgery in November. But Dr. Kane took her off of it a few weeks ago. My gut told me not to stop it, but I was trusting the doctors. I keep thinking that had I not taken her off of that antibiotic, this wouldn't have happened. ALWAYS FOLLOW YOUR GUT! I try to as much as possible, but sometimes you second guess yourself.

I cannot put into words how twisted my insides felt when I looked at her eyes. I felt sick to my stomach with fear and was probably pretty close to having an anxiety attack. Finally when the one resident doctor called her in I was able to explain what I saw and he put drops in her eyes to test for a scratch. Her eyes lit up like a Christmas Tree. Both eyes, stained green in the center...that is not good. When you think of a scratch, most people visualize a thin straight line. When you are talking about a scratched cornea....its more like a scrape. It's not a line, its a large patch of the front of her eye that appears to be missing. It's not pretty to look at, in fact it really made me cringe when I saw it. Once again the stupid residents tried taking her pressure and because they use the stupid tonal pen it never works. Idiots...they have no idea how to work with a child.

Anyway, Dr. Z came in and did not like what he saw. She had been doing so well and now this! He couldn't say for sure that there was an infection, so he took a culture to make sure. But there was definitely scratches on both eyes. JUST GREAT! Hasn't this poor girl been through enough? Why did this happen? How did this happen? There is no answer. She could have rubbed her eyes too much, bumped her eye with a toy, scratched it with her fingernail...etc. We will never know.

So...we treat it as if there was an infection. Antibiotic ointment every 3 hours around the clock...yes we have to wake her up during the night to give it to her. She is no longer on the Durezol in the right eye, apparently he thinks there is no reason for it anymore and we are dropping the dosage in the left eye down to once a day. The weekend was exhausting. I had my cell phone alarm set for every 3 hours to remind us when she was due for it again. By Monday we were out of the ointment and tired as hell. She fared well though, only waking up enough to let us put it in and then going right back to sleep, not once has she given us a hard time. She is just amazing, taking this whole thing so well. But she doesn't know any better.

On Monday I took her back and the results were positive for infection in the right eye but not the left. Her eyes did look better, but Dr. Z wanted to add back in the Iquix so help speed the healing process. We are afraid that the scratch is going to cause damage to her beautifully clear cornea and that would be disastrous. He lowered the frequency of the ointment to every 4 hours, but still around the clock. It's been almost a week and her eyes look better, but not 100% yet. Hopefully I will get better news tomorrow at her next appointment.

As long as the infection stays away, this should not affect her transplant on Feb 25th. She can't afford to wait much longer, I can see she is losing some control over that eye. Which means she is losing vision too. I just hope and pray for everything to heal quickly without any additional complications.

And as for me...I'm handling this pretty well, with the exception of the day it happened. But by all means, pour me another glass of wine.

I will update again after tomorrow.