Hi all,
I hope you all had wonderful Thanksgivings! Ours was extremely eventful. I thought I (Jill) would update you on what's going on in the Delston family.
Having bought our Thanksgiving tickets in July 2008 to see Uncle Rick, Aunt Bertha, and Sam in La Jolla, California, we were all excited for Andy's first plane ride. However, the Monday before Thanksgiving Rachel went to the eye doctor because she was seeing green flashes of light.
Turns out, she couldn't see out of her left eye at all and didn't even notice! I guess this is what happens when you have a newborn and don't sleep for 3 months straight! The doctor said she had detached retinas in both eyes and to prepare for emergency surgery the next morning. Luckily, her boss is a retina surgeon. What are the chances? Our dad, who had already arrived in California via China flew to St. Louis straightaway and our mom flew from DC.
Everything was right on track until she arrived at the hospital on Tuesday morning. She was all prepped for surgery and ready to go when the nurse came out and explained that her surgeon passed out cold and hit the OR floor while finishing up his previous surgery. So off Rachel and Matt went to a completely different hospital to get surgery from a completely different doctor.
This time everything went as planned. On her left eye she had a vitrectomy, scleral buckling surgery, and laser and on her right eye she had laser surgery as well. The surgeries went extremely well. Although going in she had a 50% chance of recovering eyesight in her left eye, the chances are much higher after her successful surgery. She already has eyesight in her right eye.
Rachel is recovering nicely and the eye patch looks fantastic (Aye aye matey). We are thinking of dressing Andy up as a parrot. However, she has to spend 2/3 of her day lying down and cannot read or write or use the computer yet. So if you've written her an email recently and haven't heard back, now you know why!
In the meantime, I'll continue to update Andy's blog so you can all see how he's doing.
Love,
Jill
2009 archive