It’s been, to the surprise of no one, a whirlwind since I arrived back in College Station a week and a half ago, which is why I’ve completely forgotten to share the fact that I had a surgery scheduled this morning. I still have journal entries coming for the Daily Wag, but I did want to fill you in on what my doctors did today and what we’re hoping as the outcome.

If you remember, I had a corneal transplant last September that restored a pretty significant amount of vision. We were all certain that seeing my son Tyson’s face was all but a done deal, but sadly, a couple of days before he was born, I started noticing a drastic shift in my eyesight, and within a matter of three weeks I was back to unusable vision. There were a couple theories as to why this was the case, but ultimately none of the noninvasive treatment options touched it, and my corneal transplant ended up rejecting in January.

The problem isn’t so much that the corneal transplant rejected, but really the cause of this rejection. A few years ago, I had a string of retinal detachments and, at the time, the only way to remedy the issue was to inject silicone oil into the eye in order to help it hold its shape. Scar tissue in my eye continued pulling the retina loose, so this was a solution to help the eye retain its structure amidst all the chaos within. That’s fine and dandy, except that the silicone oil bares the risk of forcing rejection with transplanted corneal tissue – and therein lies our problem. My retina specialist really didn’t want to pull the oil unless absolutely necessary, but I’d say repeating the transplant every three or four months isn’t exactly the most functional solution – and luckily my doctors agree.

Every surgery I have offers a glimmer of hope that eyesight can be restored – but that all comes with a price. If the silicone oil is imperative to keeping the retina attached, there might not be any other option. The biggest question  here is – will enough scar tissue form as a result of this surgery, thereby pulling the struggling retina loose? The answer seems pretty fuzzy to all parties involved, so we’re just going to have to play the waiting game to see how it all pans out.

I’m not in too much pain, which is a good thing. I’m not a huge fan of the eye being patched, mainly because it’s just terribly uncomfortable, but they’ll remove it first thing in the morning. We should know fairly quickly whether any sight was gained from the repeated transplant. Then it’s another month or two as the swelling dies down from the surgery. It took exactly 30 days from the last surgery for me to start reading the clock on my iPhone, so I’m coming into this with pretty steep expectations. But, all that being said, I’m trying to remain patient and hopeful that something grand lies around the corner.

Of course – I’ll keep you up-to-date with the progress. If you’re a subscriber of the Daily Wag, maybe consider subscribing to my main blog, too. I also keep my Facebook and Twitter accounts filled with status updates from the doctor and such, so you should definitely head there and give me a follow, as well. Thanks so much for the support, encouragement, positive thoughts and well wishes. You all are just too kind. More soon.