Weston's Eye

About a month and a half ago I took Weston to the doctor because he had an ear infection. While we were there the pediatrician noticed that Weston's left eye seemed to be a little misaligned. You can actually see it in some of the photos we've taken of him that are posted on our blog...here's a link if you're curious. The second picture on this post shows it pretty clearly.

http://hansen-happenings.blogspot.com/2008/03/photo-update.html


Anyway, the pediatrician referred us to a pediatric ophthalmologist. The appointment was today. It was long and painful...our appointment was at 9:30 a.m. but we didn't get put in a room until 11 a.m., then they decided they needed to dilate his eyes, which took another 50 minutes. In the end we didn't leave until 1 p.m. Anyway, that's beside the point. The doctor diagnosed him with Persistent Hyperplastic Primary Vitreous (PHPV) in his left eye. The basics come down to this--there is an artery that is present in the eye during its development while the baby is in the womb, which normally disintegrates by the time the baby is born. In rare cases, for some unknown reason, it fails to disappear. This is what has happened in Weston. It is obstructing and blurring the vision in his left eye. The ophthalmologist is recommending surgery to remove the obstruction. At first I was very leery of this course of action...I have a good friend in our ward here who is an optometrist, and when I told her about all this (before Weston's appointment) she said she knew the ophthalmologist we were being referred to and that she is a little too quick to recommend surgery. So I called Amy Jo (my friend) after the appointment to see what she thought, but when I told her the diagnosis, she agreed that surgery is necessary. So, after the surgery we'll have to work on rehabilitating the vision in that eye through the use of a patch (actually we're supposed to start using the patch now, before surgery) and possibly a contact lens and/or glasses. It's going to be a long and probably difficult road, but we're really grateful that the problem was caught this early in his life. The doctor said that it's unlikely that he'll ever have 20/20 vision in that eye (even with correction) but that his is a mild form of this disease...it could be much worse. So, for that, we're grateful. We'll keep you posted as things progress. We're being referred to a retinal specialist (I think) who will actually perform the surgery, and they seem to think that it needs to happen soon. This ophthalmologist said that this retinal specialist is one of the best in the country, so there's a perk to living in L.A. :) Anyway, it was quite the way to spend a day...we'll post his progress as things happen.