longest day ever

Today we went to the opthomologist to have Calvin's eyes exam for the year done. We could have gone to he optician who gives Calvin his contacts but our neurologist wanted us to see O'Halloran to check some concern he had with eye muscle movement.

The appointment did not go as I thought it would. It ended up being on of the most stressful days of my life and I was only expecting a typical eye exam.

First of all, Calvin's vision was checked and was found to be 20/50 in his right eye with the contact on and 20/20 in his left. He has lost one line of vision since his appointment a  year ago. The best his corrected vision has ever been is 20/40.  It is such a bummer after all those years of patching, drops and suffering to make backwards progress. Dr. O'Halloran wants us to start using eye drops again, once every 3 days to strengthen the rt eye. After the appointment when I told Calvin about the eye drops, when he heard it was the left eye he said, "but that is the eye I can see with." Poor sweetie has obviously forgotten what it is like to do drops. It is such torture to make his left eye blurry when it is his dominant eye. We will definitely not start those for a couple of weeks after a few other appts and spring break.

Anyway, then I asked O'Halloran to check the eye muscles. He noticed that there was a little weakness in the rt. eye movement on the periphery. Also, he noticed that Calvin has a droopy lower eye lid. All of these are consistent with a third nerve palsy and even though he has only dropped one line, a decrease in vision along with these other symptoms added to the concern.  Dr. O'Halloran asked to call Dave to explain what he saw (never a good sign) and told him that Calvin has pupil-sparing third nerve palsy and wanted to order a MRI to rule out any cause (such as tumor or bleed) within a day or two (also not a good sign).  He sent us home without doing the eye exam saying he would want to wait for the MRI before doing the exam (also not a good sign). 

Being married to a neurosurgeon has advantages and disadvantages. I know a little more than the average person about the types of patients the neurosurgeon sees and why he sees them. It is quite common for patients to present with a cranial nerve problem and find a tumor. I was sure we'd find a tumor. I cried all the way home from dropping of Calvin at school and had visions of surgery, chemo, and a funeral.  It was terrible.

We called to schedule the MRI and got a time for 8pm. It was an awake appt, meaning no sedative or general anaesthesia would be used. Calvin is either the most sweet or most difficult patient they see so it is never safe to assume a 30 minute brain MRI will be possible, but we decided to give it a shot since it was the same day and we could easily try again if it didn't work without wasting much time. We rented Wreck-it-Ralph for him to watch in the machine and moved ahead.  Dave told him about the appointment and how he would get to watch the movie with special goggles in the machine and he was super excited about it. The girls were super jealous which added to Calvin's excitement! :)

The MRI went well. Calvin was an angel. He even had to get in IV for the contrast and was totally fine with it. He got to watch the movie. Fortunately I had picked up a  new bey wheel toy for a dr. appt we have next week but was able to send it with him tonight to help him be motivated to be perfect. After the procedure he also got a happy meal from McDonalds.

The tech let Dave look at the images when the scan was done. There is no tumor.  The images look very similar, if not perfectly the same as the images from last summer.  Dave said there might be a blood vessel that is pressing against the 3rd nerve but it is hard to tell on the MRI. We will wait for the radiologist read. I am not perfectly unconcerned about it as I still worry about a problem with the vasculature.

Dave and Calvin got home at 10pm. Of course darling Clare was awake to greet them and ask about Calvin's new toy, treats and battle wounds! Calvin was in a great mood and I am proud of him for doing so well today.

As often happens, we have  a cluster of dr. appts this month. Two today, one tomorrow and one next week as well.  Now we also need to add another optho appt to get the eye exam done.  Dr's are funny when they tell you to schedule things in a week or two b/c they never have openings. I am guessing it will be in 2 months that we are finally able to see him. Though I'd bet $ that he'll call Dave with the MRI results as soon as he sees the radiologist. Darn HIPPA laws prevent Dave from looking up the records himself.