Second Surgery -- June 29th

Round 2:
Well, we made it through another one. In a lot of ways it was harder than the first and in other ways, easier. First, a surgery at 6:00 a.m. beats one at 2:00 p.m. from a no-eating perspective. We rolled Ryan out of bed and into the car at 5:30 this morning. He did not flip out as we feared when we got there -- maybe he doesn't remember, but he was fine until the nurse came in with the dreaded drops. We're regulars now, so we know the parking deck, the procedure and the nurses (who are fantastic, we might add!). Peanut now accompanies Ryan to surgery. Here he is with Peanut this morning (who also had dilation drops, compliments of Ryan):

Interestingly, he wasn't nearly as "loopy" as he was the first time after the liquid anesthesia. It seemed to take longer for him to start slurring his words and when they took him away, he was saying (somewhat coherently) that he wanted to go to the beach...

The result.
The procedure went well. Dr. Hubbard said the vessels that he'd zapped the first time look much better (less enflamed). The better news was that the untreated ones looked less "angry and engorged" leading us to believe the avastin is doing its thing. He did see more exhudiate (the yellow leakage that causes the vision loss)than last time under the retina but he said that was common (it gets worse before it gets better). He said that he'd like to do another round in 2 months, and would likely need to do a total of 2-3 more. So, hopefully by the end of the year, we'll be almost finished with the surgeries. After those are complete, he'll have several exams under anesthesia so that he can verify the lack of leakage, and treat any as necessary.

The best news.
The best news is Ryan woke up from the anesthesia much better this time. The first time, he woke up in the recovery room without us. This time, he was wheeled back to us before he woke up, so we were there when he did, and didn't flip out nearly as much as the first time. He really only cried when they removed the IV. We put him in the car and were home by 11 a.m. He slept on the couch until about 2:30, then woke up asking to eat, so we are thrilled with his recovery so far. He's watching Diego with a handfull of chocolate chip cookies - sitting at the table as if he did not just have surgery! His eye is much less swollen than it was the first time. Other than being a bit red and still quite dilated, you wouldn't know he had surgery 6 hours ago. We were really anxious about this recovery, so we're really pleased. We hope tonight goes as well. Now, 7 days of dreaded drops (4x a day) and we're home free until the end of August...

Ryan and his "lunch":


Some Medical Information:
Brian asked the doc why he treats the vessels with cryotherapy instead of laser treatments. He said the lasers don't work with all of the leakage currently present in the eye. Later on, once the body (hopefully) absorbs some of that leakage, they can treat some of the remaining vessels with the laser.


Thanks again for all your notes, prayers and well wishes.