I Can See Clearly Now, The Goop Is Gone!

A few weeks ago we visited with a pediatric opthamologist about Allie's leaky, goopy eye. Her right eye always seemed to have goop in it and was always "wet." Tears would leak out throughout the day and nothing seemed to be helping. We learned that her tear duct never fully opened and had become clogged. He recommended a quick surgery to clean out the ducts so that the tears and goop could drain properly.

While I was not excited for the prospect of her being under general anesthesia, I knew we needed to get it done while she was little so that her eyes could develop properly and we wouldn't have to deal with it anymore.

We scheduled the surgery for November 5th at 7:30am in Dayton. We had to be at the hospital, an hour away, at 5:30am. That 4:00am wake up call came very early, but I'm glad I didn't have all day to dwell on what was coming.

We arrived at the hospital and got checked in. They brought Allie back to her room and gave her a cute little book to read while they did a mini-physical on her and explained the procedure. They brought a little car for us to push her around in while we waited, which did a great job of keeping her occupied, and we waited for the anesthesiologist. We brought along her best friend, Curious George, to keep her company during the procedure.

30 minutes before the surgery they gave her a combo of Tylenol and some drug in the Valium family to help her relax and not remember anything. It was hilarious to watch her after taking that. She could barely hold her head up but was laughing hysterically and talking up a storm. Her binky was hanging out of the corner of her mouth and drool was running down her face. She was too cute!

When the nurse came, we gave Allie lots of kisses and handed her and George over. It was hard to let her go, but we knew it was best for her. About 15 minutes later, the doctor came in and told us that everything went well and that they ended up working on both ducts just to be safe.

As soon as she woke up, they brought her back to us. They gave her 8oz of straight apple juice and she was gulping it down. She never gets juice at home so she kept looking at us and saying "yum, yum." We cuddled her while she continued to come fully out of the anesthesia and pushed her around in the car while waiting for the okay to leave. About 45 minutes after she was back in her room, we were finally free to go!

We came home and all took a very nice, long nap. It was a long day but totally worth it. Her eyes have not leaked at all since! We have her follow-up on Monday and hope to get good news!