We are home.

Fast, right?!

We woke up at 4:15 am and made it home by 10:30 am.

Sounds easy enough!

Oh but it’s not.

There’s so much more.

What you didn’t see was all the tears and prayers these past weeks leading up to this.  All the doubts going back and forth between my husband and I.  All the fear.  The stomach aches.  Not only because he was going under anesthesia for the 7th time, but because this time we were messing with his face.  He can’t hide these scars under a t-shirt.  What you didn’t see was me holding Stevie’s hand as he slept last night, weeping silent tears, knowing he would never look the same.  You didn’t see our uneasiness as we waited for the anesthesiologist and the surgeon this morning.  Or the 3 of us huddled in a corner, smiling and trying to tell each other it would be ok.  The familiar pit in our stomachs as they rolled him away.  Or the nerves as we waited for that one hour procedure to be over.  And you didn’t see the sadness when went into recovery and saw him in arm restraints, hysterical.  Or our shock when we saw his eye pried open for the first time.  They had warned us that it wouldn’t be pretty.  And they were right.

His sweet little face is forever changed.  They deemed it medically necessary.  So we did it.  And we can only continued praying that we made the right decision.

This wasn’t a life or death procedure, so I realize this all sounds very melodramatic.  It was supposed to be easy.  But it just wasn’t for any of us.  When it’s life or death, you do it.  Because you just have to.  You don’t even really think about it. We have been there! But the fact that he could survive without this surgery really made us wonder if we were being hasty.

I’m sure once the swelling goes down and Stevie starts feeling like himself again, we will all feel much much better about the whole thing.

The ultimate hope for repairing his eyelids is better quality of life for Stevie.  Increased vision.  Keeping his head straight to benefit his neck and spine and jaw. Being more aware of his surroundings.  Being able to see his hands so they can do more.   Those are all the hopes.  And it wouldn’t hurt if people stopped asking me if he was blind too.

The surgery was done on his right eye only (the more severe ptosis of the two) so we’ll be doing this all over again in a few months on the left eye.  (Oy!)  He’s a bit lopsided for the moment, but things will eventually even out.

Right now he is resting in our bed.  We’re camped out here as long as he wants.  He sleeps with the eye open because the eyelid is pulled completely up.  Blinking will be something he’ll have to learn to do.   I’m not sharing any “after” photos quite yet, because I’m still a tad uncomfortable.  Just have to give it time to look more healed.  But bear with me.  I’ll get around to it.

Thanks for all your support this morning.  Helps to know so many were praying for us and thinking about us.