Home Sweet Home

Since Dr. Hertle was kind enough to come into his office on a day when he was working out of town, just to see Makayla for her follow up appointment, we were able to get home almost a full week early!

Our flight out of Akron left really early on Saturday morning, and we had a flight delay at our layover in Denver, so it was a really long trip home, but Makayla was wonderful.  Even though she showed no signs of being in pain, I kept her on Tylenol and Codine to keep the pain at bay throughout out flight, and she slept the whole way home.

I have to admit though, it was had for me to handle the stares and reaction we got from strangers about Makayla's eyes.  One woman pulled her child away from us and asked if Makayla had a bad case of pink eye.  But, most people said nothing at all and just stared.  One woman started the whole time she walked towards us, and then turned around and stared even as she passed us.  The whole way to Akron every single person told me how adorable Makayla was and what a sweetheart she is, but it broke my heart to get such the opposite reaction on the way home.  I know that her eyes are a bit startling...but she is still my beautiful, sweet, fun baby girl!

There was one person that was excited to see us though.  When we were waiting to board our second flight, I was kneeling down with Makayla when I heard tennis shoes squeeking on the tile airport floors.  When I looked over to see, it was this adorable little girl running our direction and her mom and sister right behind her.  She was smiling and ran right up to Makayla to say, "hi."  When her mom came up, I quickly explained that Makayla had just had surgery, so that she wouldn't be startled by her eye, and she asked about her surgery.  I explained that Makayla has something that causes here eyes to always jerk back and forth, and she asked if it was nystagmus, and pointed out that her daughter, the one that came running up to meet Makayla, had nystagmus too. 

My flight was boarding so we only had a few minutes to chat, but I explained how we had traveled from California to Ohio, just for this surgery and to see Dr. Hertle, and she was very interested.  She said, "Obviously we were meant to meet today" and she took my phone number.  I hope she calls and we can share some information!

Now that we are home and trying to get back to our normal routine, I realize that Makayla is probably in more pain that I realized before.  We are keeping Tylenol in her, every four hours, and codine at night when the pain gets a little worse, and to help everyone get a little more sleep.

As of this morning, four days post op, her left eye is noticeably better, and the blood in her right eye (which was her lazy eye) seems to have spread a little but is not as dark, this morning.  The swelling on her lids keeps going down, but her dad pointed out this morning that the top lids are still swollen enough to give her a "sleepy" look.  All in all, I'm pretty impressed with how much healing we are seeing in just one week!

4 Days Post Op