The Daily Hailey

Dekker’s surgery is tomorrow morning. 9:15am, for those of you who have been living under a rock, haha! Thats not meant as an insult, I swear, I just have struggled talking about anything else this last while.

Have I ever described the surgery on here? Sorry if I have, but I searched my posts for certain words I think I would have used and came up with nothing, so I’m gonna. Our eyes are held in our head by muscles, right? What Dr. Rubab is going to do (as I understand it) is detach some of the muscles and reattach them in different places. So Dekkers eyes currently turn in. She will detach the muscles on the inside corners (closer to his nose) and attach them further back, essentially loosening them. Then she’ll take the muscles on the other side of his eyes (closer to his ears) and reattach them closer to the front, tightening them. That second part is only being done on his left eye, as it seems to be a bit weaker. So thats the procedure, anyway.

It sounds a bit gory in the sense of cutting on his eyes, but I like understanding the exact step-by-step procedure, because that all makes perfect sense to me. It seems very basic, and fairly foolproof. There is risk, of course, that his eyes won’t be fully corrected, and might still turn in a touch. Or the opposite – they could look outward. We can’t really know until he wakes up. Either option can be rectified, with either glasses or a second surgery. But as you can understand, the concept of Dekker losing his vision or anything awful like that isn’t even on my radar. I’m not one to read too much into stuff, but this one particular article has proven very informative without being scary for me, if you’re interested.

We don’t usually give Dekker bedtime snacks, but since he’ll be up waaay earlier than usual and won’t be allowed to eat until after his surgery, we brought him upstairs a half hour before bedtime and offered him a snack. I asked if he wanted cereal and he sort of tilted his head all cute and asked “Apples?” So I sliced him up an apple. He also asked for crackers, so he got some of those too. He slugged back some milk and announced that he was done. He chased me into his room and we got him dressed in sweats and a long sleeved shirt that we’re going to leave him in for tomorrow. The less we have to do to him before we leave in the morning, the better. We’ll have to leave our house at 6:00am!

I think he could tell we’re all feeling it. He was pretty touchy while we were saying goodnight. I’ve been torn up about how to tell him whats happening. I try to tell him whats going to happen, just in a story form, but so its not so foreign when it happens. But even in a happy voice, using totally comfortable words, he gets upset. He doesn’t want to to talk about the doctor or going to sleep or having his eyes all better. He’s so sensitive, and so am I. It breaks my heart.

So. I’m pretty much done talking for this evening. We had a really rough time with Laela last night, and we have to hit the hay early. Final prayer requests for those who would like to pray are as follows. If you would be so kind, please take a quick second right now and lift us up in prayer.

* A good nights sleep for everyone.

* A morning where Dekker isn’t starving the second he wakes up.

* Permission to carry Dekker into the operating room.

* Steady hands and confident medical staff. Safety for my boy.

* Total and complete healing for Dekkers eyes! No more patching!!!!! Heck, no more glasses even!!!

* Uneventful few hours coming off of the anesthetic. No barfing!

* A completely successful recovery for Dekker! That he gets used to his eye drops, and that his eyes don’t bother him enough to need to rub them.

Ok, I think thats enough for now. Perhaps the last patching picture I’ll ever post…

Good night, everyone.