Our story starts at Lily’s routine 2 week check up. Our pediatrician did all the normal tests: listened to her, shined lights up her nose and in her ears. Then she came to her eyes and she took an abnormally long time on her right eye. I asked what was wrong and she said she wasn’t getting any red retractions back which could mean a cataract. Two hours later we were sitting in a specialists clinic being told it was a cataract and we could do surgery two days later. We did. She was 2 weeks old.
She recovered remarkably. At 3 weeks, lily started wearing a contact. We were lucky that she did so well with them. Until she was 11 months old. We lost a lot and decided to do just glasses.
We started patching as well around 4 months old and at first, I struggled with it. I had a difficult time patching her. We’ve since improved our patching regimen. Though, now she’s old enough to be able to tear them off!
Lily has had two EUA’s, exams under anesthesia, to check her pressure. A side affect of having a congenital cataract is glaucoma. Thankfully her pressure is normal.
Long term she will always have to have some type of visual correction for reading. We are hoping to keep her in glasses as long as we can before we put an implant in to give her the best vision long term.
Such a great story! I’m glad lily had a successful cataract surgery without glaucoma!(;