The Week of Good News

I am totally behind on posting.  I've been meaning and wanting to give you a blow by blow, but life is getting in the way.  But we have had too much good news in the last week and I'm just bursting with it!

On last Tuesday, Emma went in for a follow up appointment with Dr. Two.  Much to our surprise and delight Emma was not only able to read the whole 20/25 line, but several letters on the 20/20 line!  Then when we went in for the scan she showed less fluid at the lesion in her right eye.

This means that the bleeding has stopped.  She isn't adding any more sub-retinal fluid.  Thus, why her vision has improved.  Now, the scans are rather thorough so they show that tho she had less fluid at the macula, she had more fluid lower down.

In layman's terms, gravity is pulling the fluid out of her vision center and to lower parts of the eye.

This bit of info changed everything.  We were going to give up on the shots and try--or at least consider--a more invasive treatment. Now, we thought, we should stay the course.

But Dr. Two had another thing he wanted to try.  He had absolutely no faith that it will work, but thought it couldn't hurt.  So he prescribed a diarrhetic that, in theory, should reduce the fluid in Emma's eye.

Now Emma is not a good pill taker.  And these are not small pills.  So we smash them with a mallet and stir them into applesauce and after she's gagged that down, then she can have a serving of unpolluted applesauce.

We set our appointment for 6 days later.  I was sick on Sunday, so, naturally, she got no medication the whole day.  (Why moms have to remember everything...)  When we walked in the door today Emma was all hopped up on Xanax and we got right to our appointment.

Her vision screening went the same--20/25 with no problem and some of the 20/20 line.  Then she went in for the scan.  And what do you know?  It worked.  The diarrhetic did exactly what it's supposed to do.  And it worked!

Not only is there notably less fluid in Emma's left macula (where the crux of the vision is), there's less fluid everywhere.  Her whole eye.  It's working!  Heck, even her right eye that has very little fluid at this point had slightly less.

So, Xanax or no, Emma didn't have to get a shot today.  And we just have to keep smashing pills.

To be real, this medicine has some serious side effects and isn't really a long-term solution.  But if it can eliminate the fluid in her eye in the short term, then we'll see what happens next.

For today, it's working and we'll smash those pills with pleasure!