[tri-med] Re: opthamologist

Kelly, Morghan had surgery here in Houston, at 14 months, if you would
like to talk with our doctors, you can bring Kaiya here, we would love
to see her.  He is a great guy and has never said "not necessary" or
"Trisomy" in the 11 years we have been seeing him.

Faye

-----Original Message-----
From: tri-med-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:tri-med-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of dncingqwn@xxxxxxx
Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2007 11:35 AM
To: tri-med@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [tri-med] opthamologist

about a week or so ago i took kaiya to see the opthamologist.
wait...some background might help this post make more sense.
kaiya has ptosis in the right eye, the nerve in the right eye is also
small. in her left eye the nerve is shaped differently - has a coloboma.
even with this, the doctors don't feel that her vision is all that bad.
she tracks well, she looks at things. so we had a visit right before
conference this year and the doc prescribed patching because he felt she
was using one eye more than the other. and i would have thought that she
would use the left eye more because the right eye is kind of closed -
but he said the left eye seemed to be the weaker one. he also prescribed
glasses. he said that the prescription wasn't all that high so they
weren't mandatory - but it might help with some of her issues at school.
the one issue that i've always had is kaiya will tilt her head back to
be able to see out of her right eye. doesn't do much for her posture! i
brought this up to the doc and he said that as long as she's
compensating for the ptosis, he wouldn't recommend surgery to fix it. so
  we went on our way...and went to see the opthamologist at conference.
this doc pretty much disagreed with everything our opthamologist here
said....which brings us to the visit a week ago (takes a long time to
get in b/c they only take medicaid patients one day a month...blah blah
blah....that's another story) so anyway - this doc that we had seen
previously, and i really liked him the first time we met b/c he sat and
talked about trisomy and had questions and made recommendations...well,
he seemed a little disturbed that i brought in a letter from the doc we
saw at conference. it's not like i walked in waving it around saying
"AHA YOU WERE WRONG!" i just said, hey - this guy said one thing and you
said another - i'm confused - can you take another look and see what you
think? so yes, kaiya is a tough examination because she would rather
smile and flirt at the doc than look through his silly lenses - deal
with it dude! in the end the doc brought in another doc in the practi
 ce and this guy took a quick look at kaiya. he sat down and we had "the
discussion". (i'm sure you are all familiar with it.) he asked if she
was going to be getting any other surgeries any time soon and i told him
no. then he went on to say that a lot of kids have ptosis as severe as
hers and don't even notice it. they just compensate with the other eye.
he said that if he saw a "regular" kid with a ptosis this severe he
would definitely do the surgery. and if she was going under for
something else, he would definitely do it b/c he could just pop in, fix
the eye, and it wouldn't be a big deal. but because of her trisomy other
issues have to be considered. (this is where the hair on the back of my
neck began to bristle...) he did not feel that she would have any issues
with anesthesia, and the surgery wouldn't be a huge issue for her
because it is a simple repair. he said that all issues had to be looked
at to see if the surgery would really be beneficial to her. we wouldn't
  ever be able to know if her vision was improved all that much because
she couldn't tell us. so he told me that while it would be a necessary
procedure for a "normal" kid - for kaiya it was basically an elective
procedure. he said that some parents choose to be agressive and some
feel that their kids have enough going on without having to be put under
for this type of surgery as well. now, to give him credit - he did put
it very well. my interpretation of our conversation is obviously not
worded as well as he said it. which is why i think i'm conflicted. i
went in with the mind set that this ptosis should definitely be fixed,
and her compensations are not working because they are negatively
impacting her posture which as a whole does not work. when i walked out,
i almost felt guilty for thinking that way... i don't know if it's just
a mommy thing and i'm scared to let them do anything to my baby...or
what is going on. we go back in three months for another check up and to
gi
 ve him an answer i guess...

so basically, what do you guys think?=20

kelly - mom to akaiya T18 - 5 yrs.

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                  Families Helping Families On-line

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