The First Few Months!

 

It Was New Years Eve, And I Was In Labor.   Soo Ready To Have Him Here, To Be Done With The Pregnancy!     And Then, On December 31 2011, After A Very Quick And Easy Delivery, My Son, Elias David Hayes, Came Into This World!  We Now Had 2 Beautiful, Healthy Children, And Our Family Was Finally Complete!

Nurses And Doctors Came And Went, Doing This Test And That, And Everything Was Fine. They Told Me To Follow Up With A Pediatrician, And To Make Sure To Have His Eyes Examined, He Was Being A Rebel, And Wouldn’t Let Them Do They're Test. 
It Wasn’t Until We Were Home That Eli Really Opened Up His Eyes, And When He Did I Noticed That Something Wasn’t Quite Right.    In Both Of His Eyes,  In The Very Center Of Each Pupil, There Were Little Tiny White Spots.. They Were So Small In fact, That My Mother Insisted That They Were Little Sparkles.  Well As Much as I’d Love To Say That My Son Was Born With A Twinkle In His Eye, I Knew That Something Was Wrong.
The Next Morning, I Took Him In To The Pediatrician...   She Said,  In All,  He Was Perfectly Healthy.Than I Told Her What The Doctors At The Hospital Told Me.. And I Asked Her About The Spots..   As Soon As She Looked At His Eyes, She Let Out An " Oh My." 
I Held My Breath For What Seemed Like Forever....
And Then She Said It, The Six Words That Would Change My Life Forever, " Your Son Was Born With Cataracts!"            

My World Starting Spinning, And I Felt My Chest Sink. The Lump In My Throat Grew Bigger And Bigger.. My Eyes Filled With Tears And Before I Could Take A Breath, I Was Sobbing.
Cataracts?!?  How? Why? Was It My Fault? Was He Okay? I Had So Many Questions, And Unfortunately She Didn’t Have The Answers.
She Referred Me To An Opthomalogist In Portland, Who Insisted On Seeing Us The Next Day.  I Was A Wreck! I Cried (As Any Mother Would At That Point,) Like Baby!!! 
After A Good 30 Minutes Of Crying In The Parking Lot, I Was Able To Pull Myself Together Enough To Call Eli’s Dad, And Tell Him The News.. He Was Devastated! 
That Was Probably One Of The WORST Nights Of My Life!
I Didn’t Want To Let My Baby Go! I Just Kept Looking Into His Eyes, Like I Was Waiting For Them To Provide Some Kind Of Answer, As To Why And How This Had Happened .                                                                                                                  

The Next Day, We Got Up Early, And Headed To The Eye Doctor. It Didn’t Take Him Long To Confirm, That My Son Definitely Had Cataracts. 
Congenital Bilateral Cataracts. A Cloudy White Opacity On The Lenses. The Leading Cause Of Blindness. The Dr. Immediately Began To Talk About Surgery, And How It Was Absolutely Necessary. 
And Again The Spinning... I Felt Sick.    He Began Explaining That Since Eli Was Born With The Cataract, Unless It Was Removed, He Would Never Learn To See... 
It Isn’t Until 8 Weeks Of Age That An Infant Begins To Really See, The Brain Starts Transferring The Light That Passes Through Your Lenses Into Images, However, The Cataracts Would Prevent His Brain From Receiving A Clear Image.  
During The Surgery, The Dr. Removes The Clouded Lenses From The Eye. Now Since An Infants Eyes Still Have A Bit Of Growing To Do, Doctors Are Unable To Replace It With An Implant.  

So As You Can Imagine,  At This Point I’m Crying..  Not Quite Sobbing..  But Crying. 
Before Arriving To The Appointment, I Had So Many Questions, And Now All I Could Do Was Listen.   After He Finished Explaining The Surgery, We Began Discussing What Came Next. He Informed Us That Until Eli's Eyes Have Reached They're Semi/Maximum Size, Which Is round The age Of 3. Elias Was Going To Have To Wear Contact Lenses! 
( Of Course, I Wigged! ) How Was I Ever To Put Contacts In My Babies Eyes!  I Can't Even Put Them In My Own Eyes, Let Alone A Babies!!!
After We Asked Every Question We Could Think Of, We Went Home. 
Still Eager To Learn More, I Got On Google And Read Every Possible Article I Could Find On Infant Cataracts.

The Next Day I Received A Call From Casey Eye Institute In Portland Oregon. They Had Already Scheduled Elias’s Surgery!! Just Three Short Weeks Away!  And As You Can Imagine… Those Three Weeks Were Very Emotional!

 

The Day Of The Surgery Came All Too Soon, And I Was Not Prepared!!!  We Arrived At Casey Eye Institute, Where We Were Greeted By The Pediatric Opthamalogist Who Had Initially Diagnosed Elias With The Cataracts. He Him Self Would Be Preforming Eli’s Surgery..  After Explaining The Surgery, And Answering Our Thousands Of Questions, They Began Prepping Him! I Of Course Was An Emotional Wreck! After He Was Prepped, The Anesthesiologist Came In And Went Over The Procedure,  He Assured Us That Our Son Was In Good Hands, And That He Would Stay With Him From The Time He Fell Asleep, Till The Time He Woke Up.  I Still Don’t Know If That Boy Fully Understood How Much Faith I Had To Put Into Him, To Allow Him To Roll My Baby Down That Hall.

We Sat In The Waiting Room For What Seemed Like FOREVER. Each Eye Was Estimated To Take A Little Over An Hour. But It Felt Like Days! Finally, The Doctor Came Out! He Sat Down, And Began Telling Us What A Success The Surgery Was, There Were No Complications,  And He Was Doing Fine!  When We Walked In To The Recovery Room, My Eyes Filled With Tears.. My Sweet Little Baby, Was Lying On A Bed, Completely Unconscious, With Tubes In His Nose, And These Huge Patches Taped Over His Eyes!!! I Just Wanted To Hold Him Forever! 
After Spending 6 Hours In Recovery, We Were Able To Take Him Home! Still Extremely Groggy Form The Surgery...He Spent The Night Sleeping Off The Anesthetic. 

 

 

We Took Him In For His Post Op Appointment The Next Day. The Doctor Was Very Pleased With the Way Elias’s Eyes Were Healing. He Instructed Us To Come In The Following Day To Get His Contacts.  That Day Couldn't Have Come Any Sooner!!! We Woke Up Bright And Early, And Rushed Back To The Doctors.. He Inserted Elias's Contacts, And As Soon As He Did.... We Could See A Difference!
Our Son Could SEE!!!   I Will Never Forget That Moment! And It Was Accompanied By Many Tears, Although, These Tears, Were Happy Tears!!!

 We Were Soo Happy! Probably The Happiest We’d Been In Weeks! The Contacts Seemed To Be Working Great!  Until We Realized That The Right Contact Didn’t Really Fit. Every Time Eli Would Move His Eye, Rather Than Following It, The Contact Would Drift The Other Way… We Were Unsure What To Do, We Were Afraid That Because It Wasn’t Fitting His Eye Correctly, His Vision Development Would Be Stunted Even More.. After Replacing The Contact Lens, And Getting The Same Result, The Doctor Took A Closer Look. He Told Us That Elias’s Right Eye Was Significantly Smaller Than The Left, And That He Had An Astigmatism As Well.. This Was Preventing The Contact From Fitting Correctly.  For The Next Few Months, We Continuously Adjusted The Contact. Keeping It In Place As Well As We Could, But It Never Seemed To Stay In Place.  At About 3 Months, We Had To Begin The World Of Patching!!! His Left Eye, Was Now Significantly Stronger Than His Right... Patching Wasn't So Bad At First, But With Age It Gets Harder...

       

 

 

 

Elias Did Great With His Contacts, But At About 4 Months Old, We Decided To Get Him A Pair Of Glasses!  Since He's Gonna Have To Wear Both Contacts And Glasses At 18 Months.. We Figured We Should Get Him Used To Both! He Switches Back And Forth, About Every 2 Weeks Or So. And This Far, It Has Been Great!!! 
When He First Got His Glasses... I Cried, Not Because I Was Sad, But Because, It Was As If He Was Really Him Self For The First Time!  As If He Was Made For Them!