World Traveling Military Family

Bea is scheduled to have eye surgery on both her eyes on April 30th!  It is so nerve wracking but I know it needs to be done.  She's getting her exotropia corrected.  Basically her eyes wander outward every so often with her right eye being much more noticeable than the left.  It mainly does it when she is looking far away or is tired.  

We noticed it a year ago and decided to get it check in Misawa, Japan.  The eye doctor there had never treated anyone with it so didn't know what to do for her.  Since we had an assignment back to the states I knew we could get care here so I wasn't worried.  We got to AL and in Nov I got a referral to take her to a civilian eye doctor.  He basically told me there wasn't anything we could do and she would have to live with it.  Fortunately for me I had already done lots of research on the Internet (Imagine that!) and told him I thought it could be corrected especially under the age of 6, she was 5.  He referred me to a specialist in B'ham.  So I got the referral and made the appt. which was scheduled for April 2nd, yep we had to wait 4 months!  Looking back it's a good thing we had to wait because it was already crazy enough with Boo's surgery and PT, and Mr. B's surgery!  So the eye doctor yesterday said the only to to correct it at this point is by surgery, and on both eyes.  If we don't correct it there are three things that can happen.  It can stay the same and will never get better, it can get worse, or she can begin to dominantly use only 1 eye.  So correcting this for her now is the best option for her overall quality of life.  So while it is needed it still scares me!

The surgery is 80% effective with the first surgery, meaning there is a 20% chance she might have to have an additional surgery at some point.  It is done on the eye muscles and not the eye so she'll still be able to see right after surgery and the only thing we'll see is red eyes and possibly some cross-eyedness for awhile, this thought scares me!  The surgery is on a Thurs, so she'll miss school Thurs, Fri, and will get to go back on Monday after the weekend.  She'll be restricted to no swimming or playing in the dirt for 1 week after the surgery...ok that easily manageable.  

Looking at these pics you'd never know she has exotropia, I'll see if I can get one of her doing it but it's hard to 'catch' in time to grab a camera.  Please pray that everything will go well and the surgery will be a success.