Double Day at Duke!!

Today is the day we have prayed for and about for so long. Chayse will be going in for double eye surgery today! We pray that everything will go smoothly and that she will have no problems with her eyes as we move forward in life. We are so blessed to be so close to such wonderful doctors and amazing facilites. God is good.

A sad day

It's June 14th again. A day that is so bittersweet to our family. Four years ago, we welcomed an amazing little girl into this work, only to lose her too soon. Today, on Hope's 4th birthday, she got an amazing present... a puppy. And not just any puppy, but our puppy. Our beloved Red Blood hound, Sandy May, died unexpectedly this morning at just 6 years old. While our hearts break from the losses we have suffered on this day, our hearts smile knowing that Hope got the best birthday present ever. Happy birthday sweet girl. I hope you will love Sandy as much as we have! Sandy May, you are already missed.

A Day at Duke

This morning, I packed for a long day at Duke and I am glad I did! We were there for over 5 hours! What a day it has been! We had to go today for Chayse, as she had two doctor's appointments scheduled.

First we had to go to the Duke Eye Center to meet with Dr. W. and let him check on Chayse and her progress. Chayse's eyes have gotten no worse, but they have not gotten any better either. We did learn today that her glasses were made with the wrong prescription in them, which didn't hurt her at all, but they were not strong enough to help her either. So, we are now without glasses for a week while the lenses get replaced with the correct prescription. Hopefully once they glasses are replaced, she will be able to focus and see correctly.

Her eye is still turning in so we are continuing with the occlusion therapy in hopes of strengthening that eye muscle. We are praying that we will not have to do surgery on her eyes and that this will all correct itself over the course of therapy over the next few months.

Time will tell.

Once we left the Eye Center, we walked over to the Children's Hospital to meet with Dr. B. to have her murmur checked out. It is something that Chayse was born with but it has to be checked as she grows. Dr. B. worked with us when we had Hope and would have been her surgeon had she ever gone into surgery. I always felt very at ease with him as he spoke in simplicity and never let things go over my head. Today was no different as he went over Chayse's heart with me. Chayse had an EKG and Dr. B. listened to her heart valves and the flow everything in there and all in all, she is just fine! It will be something to watch as she grows but overall, it does not appear to be something that will be a life changer for Chayse.

Praise God for the blessings in life we receive when we least expect them!

Occlusion Therapy

Chayse seems to be adjusting well to wearing her patch during her therapy hours. It is something we are able to do here in the home so that has made this part pretty easy so far. The first few minuets she has it on are a little challenging but once she gets ajusted to it, she does ok. She has run into the furniture a few times but I think that will get better as she gets used to using her eye again! I also think that this gives her a little headache though as it is pushing her brain and eye to work together in ways that they have not worked in a while, but is what we are wanting to happen!

This is the face of occlusion therapy!

And this, is her little brother!

The gift of sight

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that one day I would wonder if my child would be able to see things or not, but over the past few weeks, I have began to wonder just that.

You see, as we were having a family meal one night two weeks ago, I saw something that startled me. Chayse's eye rolled all the way in where you could not see the iris or the pupil. It turned it back almost as soon as turned in but it caught me off guard. Over the past week, I watched as it did it again, and again, and again. Nathan was in NYC when it started happening regularly but as soon as he came home, he was seeing the same thing I was. We also had several members of the family notice it as well. So, two things were determined:

1. Chayse is cross eyed.

2. We needed to see a doctor to see what was going on.

We spent several hours yesterday at Duke with a doctor who specializes in pediatric ophthalmology and strambismus. Dr. W. confirmed what we already knew, Chayse's eyes were indeed crossing. After running several test to rule out different things, we have learned that Chayse's brain is not receiving the images from one of her eyes. Her eyes are not working together as a team so one eye looks at one thing while the other eye looks at something else. This would normally cause double vision. But in small children, the brain uses suppression to switch off the second image. Children rarely have double vision because of this suppression... they instead just use one eye as their primary source for sight. That said, we now are doing occlusion therapy every day for 2 hours a day, and Chayse will have to wear glasses. The hope is that this regiment will indeed make her brain recognize and accept the images that it is currently rejecting, thus keeping her from having permanent vision loss.

We are so thankful that this was not as bad as it could have been. We now pray that this will work and Chayse will be able to gain full binocular vision with her eyes!!

Hope

Tonight, I find myself thinking about sweet baby Hope. I am sitting here, in my home, with two wonderful and loved children. I see them play and interact and in the midst of it, I think about Hope and the moments we never had with her. The hour she was here was so short and yet it went by so fast. I know had her time been longer it would have been a time filled with pain and suffering due to her organ defects but I still find myself sometimes wondering about her smile or her laugh... things we will never know. I look at these two miracle children playing at my feet and my heart overflows with love. While we have a void in our lives that will never be filled, our lives are so full from these children. And I wonder, how is that possible. How did we get so blessed. God... He is so good.

My cup runneth over.
My cup runneth over.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy FIRST Valentine's Day my sweet baby boy!!! We love love love love you! You have brought so much into our lives in your short 5 months in this world and we are forever grateful for it! Sweet sweet babies of mine today and everyday, I hope you know how much you are loved!!!