LASER

Edward had his eye exam yesterday and unfortunately it showed progression of his retinopathy in both eyes.  The eye doctors consider the back of the eye like a face of a clock.  The center of the clock from which the hour and second hands emanate is the central part of the eye that executes the business end of our sight.  The actual hour and second hands are the blood vessels (except their are 4 major vessels instead of two).  Edward has about 'nine clock hours' of retinopathy in his right eye and 'three clock hours' in his left - indicative of Stage 3 disease.  Thus, we are planned for laser ablation this morning.  Though we hoped to avoid surgery totally, we are grateful that such a procedure exists.

The success rate of the laser surgery is approximately 90%.  Unfortunately, we will not know if the surgery is successful right away.  We have to wait for the next two eye exams to see if the laser halted the progression of the abnormal blood vessel growth.  The biggest complication of the procedure is permanent loss of approximately 10-15% of Edward's peripheral vision.  'Permanent vision loss' sounds pretty bad, but it turns out that we don't use that peripheral vision all that much.  The second biggest complication is near-sightedness which will lead to glasses at a fairly young age.  This occurs in about 50-60% of children similar to Edward who have to undergo this procedure. 

The procedure is done under conscious sedation, meaning they will give Edward two medicines (fentanyl (a pain killer) and versed (a 'relaxing' agent) to make him sleepy and comfortable so he can tolerate the procedure.  An unfortunate side effect of both of these medications is respiratory depression which can lead to apneas and bradycardias.  Should he begin to experience periods of apnea during the surgery, Edward will have to be intubated.  This happens approximately 10-20% of the time and we are hopeful that he can avoid the breathing tube!

So we could certainly use some extra thoughts and prayers today...We will let you know how the surgery goes!

PS: Laser is actually an acronym for 'Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation' - I actually did learn something in college physics